Titans can't be predictable at Kansas City, and Derrick Henry can't be 'soft'

If self-awareness counts for anything in these playoffs, the Tennessee Titans have helped themselves this week. You can’t fix a problem until you acknowledge it.

Let’s take short-yardage predictability, for example. It cost this coaching staff last season at Indianapolis and almost surrendered a win at Chicago, then loomed large this season in losses to the Raiders, Cardinals and 49ers – and was rejected in favor of a play-action pass to secure a win at Indy.

Offensive coordinator Terry Robiskie just confirmed what a lot of people have been thinking.

“We as a group, of course coaches, we’ve kind of got a little bit of that macho stuff with us too,” Robiskie said. “You know, we believe we’ve got some plays that we believe are bread and butter. We’re going to call that bread and butter and our bread and butter is going to be better than yours, you know?

A couple times you look at Jacksonville last (week), golly, they probably had eight guys on the side of the ball where we were going to, you know? And we always had one guy, we just weren’t able to get to him (to block him). So we’ve got to come up with something, as a staff, we sat down and talked about coming up with an idea to adjust to that, adjust to what they did.”

Thank you! Some might read that as an indictment of this staff, which doesn’t really need any more detractors.

I call it refreshing. The mindset of “We’re a big, tough team and we should be able to get a yard whenever we want” is shaky for any NFL team, especially one that really isn’t dominant up front. Admitting machismo and exploring alternatives is a positive.

More: Titans' Delanie Walker on Marcus Mariota: 'Sometimes you've got to overcome coaching'

More: Titans likely to encounter "good Chiefs" after midseason swoon

More: How to watch, listen and stream NFL wild card playoff game between the Titans and Chiefs

And it doesn’t mean the Titans won’t run. They’re built to run and they have to run to win Saturday at Kansas City in the AFC wild-card round. Which brings us to Derrick Henry and his assessment of his debut as an NFL feature back – 28 carries for 51 yards, plus a 66-yard touchdown on a screen pass in Sunday’s playoff-clinching 15-10 win over Jacksonville.

“I didn’t feel like a workhorse back. I kind of felt soft,” Henry said. “I wasn’t really happy about my game at all. It hasn’t left my mind since the clock hit zero. … I just felt like I didn’t run like myself. I wasn’t really happy. I could say other words, but I’ve got to play better.”

Thank you! He’s right. The second-year Heisman winner from Alabama didn’t look like a power back for most of Sunday, which is strange considering he’s 6-foot-3, 247 pounds. This was a perfect illustration of why DeMarco Murray – who’s likely to miss his second straight game Saturday with a knee injury – has kept his starting job over Henry despite Henry’s astounding physical gifts.

Get Henry going downhill and there can’t be a more imposing ballcarrier in the league.

“When he gets to the second level, I don’t think there’s a DB in the league who would willingly want to tackle this guy,” said Titans safety Kevin Byard, and no one came close on Henry’s race to the end zone that a man his size should not be able to do at such speed.

The problem is getting him going downhill. Where Murray sees things and hits things and makes sure a 2-yard play gets the 2 yards, Henry too often wants to bounce outside and think home run. His winding 12-yard loss, a Pop Warner special, is an obvious example, but far from the only one. He has to get better at squaring up and ramming away for short gains that end up having a cumulative effect on defenses.

“You talk about it, and then the next thing you know he bounces outside, stiff-arms a guy and goes all the way down the field,” Titans head coach Mike Mularkey said of trying to change Henry. “He's been running a long time, you've got to be very careful. There's things he's learning as he goes.”

Such as pass protection. He’s competent there now. He struggled at times as a rookie. He still isn’t Murray, who is expert in that facet and in sneaking out for key receptions.

But that won’t matter Saturday. This is going to be Henry’s game. Say this for him: He has handled playing behind Murray extremely well.

“I’d say that’s a humbling thing to do, and for him to do that with all the hype he had coming in, man, that’s a pretty phenomenal thing,” Byard said of Henry. “It shows he has something to him.”

But now he must show he can be the main guy. At times that means “just trying to fall forward and get a positive gain, not running soft,” Henry said.

And his coaches have to use him well. Robiskie said there are short-yardage plays that are called with no option for Marcus Mariota to check to something else. That seems problematic. Mariota and Mularkey expressed regret after a Dec. 17 loss at San Francisco that Mariota didn’t switch out of a third-and-2 shotgun draw play to Murray that was stuffed.

There’s something to be said for simplicity and the ability to impose your will, but most NFL defenses are going to stop what they know is coming.

“We’re sitting down with a halfback who is whatever Derrick is, 6-4, 250. Third and 1, you’ve got to go get us a third and 1,” Robiskie said. “That’s our bread and butter, that’s our bread and butter play.”

Then he continued.

“Of course, we might have to come up with a couple things to let Marcus make that play, too, because he’s shown that he’s able to do it.”

Thank. You.

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.