FRISCO, Texas — Stopping Derrick Henry starts with the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive front pushing the Baltimore Ravens offensive line backward, Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said Thursday at The Star. Henry has 212 rushing yards through two games, second in the NFL.
Dallas has allowed 347 rushing yards over the same stretch. The New York Giants ran 37 times for 165 yards in the opener, and the Washington Commanders ran 32 times for 182 yards in Sunday’s 37-20 Dallas win.
Henry is in his 11th season. He ran for 1,595 yards and 16 touchdowns last season, and in this season’s opener he moved into third place on the NFL’s career rushing touchdown list.
“The challenge is great, for sure,” Schottenheimer said. “I don’t know Derrick. I’ve competed against him multiple times. What’s amazing to me is the offseason training videos that come out. I’m sure he doesn’t put them out. There’s people, whether it’s his trainers or people that are in all of them. But it reminds me, I’m going back since we started with older people. You remember clips of Walter Payton running that hill in Chicago, right? The training, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, look at this guy.’”
“But you see the things that Derrick does to create, and it’s very specific,” Schottenheimer continued. “It’s lower body power and strength. It’s all ground-based because that’s the way he plays the game. He’s a running back, so you have to be able to get your cleats in the ground. Incredible player.”
“What we have to do is we have to create knockback,” Schottenheimer added. “Our front has to play really, really well because if you can kind of make Derrick hesitate his feet a little bit, it gives you the best chance to slow him down. If he’s getting seams and build-up speed and they’re knocking us laterally, which we never want to be knocked laterally, unfortunately, those seams are big and safeties and linebackers just have a hard time getting him on the ground by themselves.”
Brian Schottenheimer Says Dallas Cowboys Linebackers ‘Hesitant’ In Run Fits
Rookie Jaishawn Barham started at middle linebacker against Washington in place of DeMarvion Overshown, who strained his hamstring in the opener. Schottenheimer said Wednesday there is a “low probability” Overshown plays Sunday, and he missed practice again that day.
Dallas starts Kenny Clark, Quinnen Williams, and Otito Ogbonnia inside. Jonathan Bullard, who signed in the offseason after a year with New Orleans, is also part of the defensive tackle group.
“Well, it’s a couple things,” Schottenheimer explained. “One, again, the knockback creates different angles for the linemen to where they can’t get up clean. The problem with any linebacker, whether you’re a 240-pound linebacker, I’m going all the way back, but 290-pound Levon Kirkland back in the day that was setting edges and knocking people back. If guards in alignment get up clean on linebackers, it’s really, really hard.”
“So the penetration, the knockback by Kenny and Quinnen and Tito and Bull and all those guys, that’s so important because it keeps the linebackers clean,” Schottenheimer noted. “Where we’ve been a little bit off, we’ve been a little hesitant with our run fits. Meaning the linebackers see it, they gotta trust it, they gotta go. I got the A gap, I got the fallback in the B gap, whatever it is. We’ve been a little hesitant, but in terms of shooting their hands and things like that, I think they’re doing a good job. But it does make it easier if the guard or center is a little slower getting up to you as opposed to getting a free run.”
The split between a tight end and the tackle next to him is one of the tells Schottenheimer wants his linebackers reading before the snap.
“No, I think different reasons for different things,” Schottenheimer said. “Sometimes there’s a lot of things happening, think motions and movements and cross the ball seal blocks that make them have to fall back. So when you bring, let’s say, a tight end over here to the right and he comes back across, you have to fall back gap. So I maybe have the front side B gap. When he comes back, I got to go back to the backside A gap. So again, that’s coach speak, but that’s where there is some hesitation.”
“So some of it is what teams are doing to us,” Schottenheimer continued. “And some of it’s the fact that if you do have an inclination of the guy’s going to fall back, what might tell me that is the tight end split. If the tight end is really close to the tackle, there’s a really good chance he’s probably going back. So we have terms. And you see that, you’ve got to trust it. And once he goes, you have to attack.”
Derrick Henry, Lamar Jackson Lead Baltimore Ravens Run Game Into Rio
Henry ran for 144 yards and 3 touchdowns in Baltimore’s 41-23 opening win over the Indianapolis Colts. Through two games, he has 40 carries for 212 yards and 4 touchdowns. The Ravens lost 24-17 to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
Lamar Jackson has 74 rushing yards this season. The two-time MVP has 6,596 career rushing yards, the most by a quarterback in NFL history.
Kickoff at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro is 3:25 p.m. CT Sunday on CBS. Dallas is the designated home team.
