Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry was in the midst of an MVP-caliber campaign and appeared on pace to break Eric Dickerson's single-season rushing record when he went down with a foot injury in Week 8.
Dickerson, who set the mark in 1984 with 2,105 yards, told PopCulture.com's Brian Jones he would've preferred to see Henry break his record than suffer a potentially year-ending injury.
"Someone could possibly break that record," Dickerson said. "Derrick Henry had a shot at it, Adrian Peterson had a shot at it. I mean, when you look at a Derrick Henry, even this year, they ran the ball a lot, they were the old school running football team. I hated to see Derrick get hurt.
"You know, people asked me about the record, I said, 'Look, I would rather see him shatter that record than get hurt.' I don't want to see any player get hurt because he plays my position."
Dickerson added that it's difficult for running backs to reach the 2,000-yard mark due to injuries and other factors.
"It's very hard, it's a lot that has to go perfect," he said. "You can get hurt, you can fall behind, you have to have the right offensive line in place even if you don't have a quarterback. You don't want to have to see those eight-and nine-man fronts every game. You have to try to break the long run, sometime."
Henry set the fifth-best mark of all time last campaign with 2,027 rushing yards. He had a league-high 937 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns this season before getting injured.
