After Derrick Henry ran through and away from the Pittsburgh defense (including Patrick Queen) to score a 44-yard touchdown in the third quarter, he slowly walked off the field and toward the stands.
Henry thumped his heart over and over, then saluted the raucous Ravens crowd.
The King ruled supreme in his first playoff game as a Raven, and he loved his loyal subjects just as much as they enjoyed watching him punish Baltimore's archrival and banish them from the postseason.
Henry ran for 186 yards, a Ravens postseason record, and two touchdowns and Baltimore piled up 299 (300 before a final kneel-down) overall as the Ravens thumped the Steelers, 28-14, in the wild-card round of the playoffs at M&T Bank Stadium.
The Ravens had 164 rushing yards in the first half – the most they've had in any half of a playoff game in franchise history. Lamar Jackson opened the game gashing the Steelers with his legs, including five straight runs on their opening touchdown drive.
Just when the focus was on Jackson, the Ravens countered with a new wrinkle, using Henry on a direct snap run in which they put Jackson in motion across the formation. That drew two linebackers and opened the hole for Henry, who finished the 34-yard run by tossing Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick to the turf with a stiff-arm.
Jackson compared watching Henry run to watching the movie, "Cars."
"You know when Lightning McQueen is just flying and flashing past, and it's like '(whooshing sound),'" Jackson said. "That's how Derrick looked when he was running past all those guys. It looked like a movie. I'm not going to lie to you, but I'd rather be watching it than be on the other side of the ball; I know that."
After jumping out to an early lead, the Ravens double down on their ground attack.
Baltimore's second touchdown of the game came on a 13-plays, 85-yards drive that was made up entirely of runs. It put the Ravens up 14-0 in the second quarter and was capped by an 8-yard Henry touchdown run when he dragged Steelers into the end zone.
That ground and pound drive broke the Steelers defense and broke the game open. Of the Ravens' first 32 plays, 24 were runs.
"That's a lineman's dream right there," center Tyler Linderbaum said. "Continue to wear on them. It's a physical team; you've got to exceed the physicality. I thought we did that today. I thought we set the tone early what kind of game it was going to be. They knew we were going to try to come in and run the ball and it was their job to stop it."
The Steelers never did stop it. Just when Pittsburgh started to close the gap in the second half, pulling to 14 points down on their first drive of the third quarter, Henry slammed the door in their face again, this time with the 44-yard run up the gut.
Asked about that run, Queen simply said, "I don't want to talk about it." Fellow former Raven turned Steelers safety DeShon Elliott put it bluntly.
"Having 300 yards rushing on you is worse than 300 yards passing," Elliott said. "They definitely put belt to butt today."
Five years ago to the day, as a member of the Tennessee Titans, Henry ran over the top-seeded 2019 Ravens with 30 carries for 195 yards. His stiff-arm on Earl Thomas went viral that night, and he added a few more to the highlight reel Saturday versus the Steelers.
Now the Ravens have the King on their side, and they're going to be tough to dethrone the rest of the way in the playoffs. But Henry is staying humble.
"Give credit to the guys blocking and the man above," Henry said.
"We're not going to get too [far] ahead of ourselves and go off the walls about how great we are. We're going to stay level-headed, enjoy this one, watch the film, see where we can get better at and then move onto the next one."
