Is Derrick Henry worth the injury risk this season? | Fantasy Football Forecast

In the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast, Matt Harmon is joined by Jason Moore of The Fantasy Footballers to break down if Tennessee Titans RB Derrick Henry is worth drafting despite his injury history.

Video Transcript

MATT HARMON: The reality is, with Derrick Henry, I think you've got to ask yourself about carry cliffs and stuff like that. Is he getting close to those thresholds? For sure.

But I mean, shoot, Jason. If you had Derrick Henry in your league last year, you can't really be pissed about drafting him because he basically carried you up until the moment he exited stage left, which is unfortunate. But my God. He was a huge advantage the weeks that he was in there.

JASON MOORE: The whole question, really, primarily is just health, injury. He's a big, heavy back who's running on a broken foot. You worry about re-injury.

And we've dove a little deeper really, really recently, because we've had Derrick Henry discussions on the show. And I, a couple of weeks ago, was saying, I find myself passing him over and over and over. I'll go a little bit later in my draft and I'm just like, oh, I just don't want him. I know he's my running back 3, but I don't want to pull the trigger. I'm worried about the injury. I'm worried about the age. I'm worried about the career carry counts.

But recently, we did more digging. The 20% re-injury rate is if you come back quick from the injury. He had three more weeks than the normal timeline that allows you to go down to a 10% re-injury risk. And the specific screw that was put in and the procedure that he had, really in the recent history of running backs, is down to 5% re-injury risk.

So it's not to say something else couldn't pop up, but it really is-- at that point-- I mean, Dalvin Cook's injury with the shoulder has a 20% re-injury risk. We don't talk about that, because he usually plays through it, wears the device, still dominates, whatever.

But I do think Derrick Henry is-- for someone that just a couple of minutes ago was like, you've got to have the courage and draft Christian McCaffrey number 1, Derrick Henry should dominate. And he was even seeing targets last year. And now, with the vacation of AJ Brown, it's like, shouldn't Derrick Henry catch even more passes?

So I think I feel comfortable grabbing him off after Austin Ekeler and Dalvin Cook. I'm more comfortable in the pass catchers. Then I would pull the trigger on Derrick Henry.

MATT HARMON: Man, if Derrick Henry finished the season as the running back 1 overall, I wouldn't be surprised. If he fell off the cliff this year, I probably wouldn't be surprised either.

The thing, though, the argument is, the history of running backs, the amount of carries, that type of stuff-- well, Derrick Henry has already been an outlier to this point in his career. I don't think we've ever seen a running back that looks or moves or is built like Derrick Henry, being this type of guy.

So I hear you, man. I mean, the Titans to me-- I've said this a few times-- feel like the most volatile team in the NFL. I can see them being really good again and all these things hitting, or a lot going wrong for the Titans. And I think Derrick Henry, as a fantasy player, just kind of encapsulates that.

All right, Jason. You're here today on behalf of your guys' work with Spotify Live, what you've got going on this year. So why don't you tell me and the people out there what you guys are doing with Spotify Live this year?

JASON MOORE: Yeah, so Spotify Live-- basically, every single Wednesday, we are doing a live show that anybody can participate in. You can join the Spotify Live app. You can ask your questions. You can come up on stage and literally talk to us, get your questions answered. Or if you just want to listen, you can do that just on the Spotify app. But every Wednesday at 6:00 PM Eastern, we're going to be live.

So we call it "The Party Room," if you want to search for "The Party Room." Because really, it's a fun platform where, when we've got the podcast, we've got our outline, our agenda. We're going to talk about everything going on. When we've got "The Party Room," the tie is gone-- not that we ever wear a tie. The pants are gone.

MATT HARMON: (LAUGHS)

JASON MOORE: And we're just having a good time. We're just taking your questions, having a fun experiment. We can ask some questions and poll the audience for instant reactions. It's just a fun new medium for fantasy football.

MATT HARMON: I mean, it sounds awesome. The people definitely want their questions answered. And yeah, my God, Jason. I have known you guys for several years now. I'm not sure I've seen anyone of you ever wear a tie. So it sounds like right out of your--

JASON MOORE: Not even at a wedding.

MATT HARMON: (LAUGHS) It sounds like right up you guys' alley. I think people will love that. You guys have built one of the best communities in the fantasy football space. So I'm sure you'll flood that with a lot of folks there as well. That's going to be awesome, people getting their questions answered by three of the best in the business. Sounds pretty killer.