“Go to USC if you want to be developed,” said a former NFL defensive star.
USC Football‘s new co-defensive coordinator, defensive line coach, and run game coordinator has been praised across the board from his coaching prowess to his recruiting ability. The latest plaudits came from former first-round defensive lineman Michael Brockers. Brockers played for Henderson from 2019 to 2020 while both were with the Los Angeles Rams.
Eric Henderson appeared on the most recent episode of Brocker’s podcast, The BrockCast, over the weekend and the 6’5″ 300-pounder, took the opportunity to endorse his former coach to defensive line prospects looking for a place to hone their craft.
“If you a D lineman. If you watching this and you want to be developed and to have all the techniques, ‘come to USC.” Brockers said, “Coach Henny, he is where is at. When you want to get better, when you want to find out where you are, and get better.. I mean he made me better and I thought I was I good but when you got somebody telling you, ‘your hand placement could be here it could be there and you coachable. Okay, you know let me try this out and you’ll see it make your game better.”
By the time Henderson was hired by the Rams, Brockers had already been with the Rams for seven seasons, so Henderson could even teach old dogs new tricks. In his first season under Henderson, Brockers quarterback pressures increased from 22 to 36 and from one sack to four. His two combined seasons are statistically two of the best consecutive years of his career.
Brockers also shared that Henderson coached everyone on the team including future Hall of Famers;
“That’s how I know this mother f–cker love coaching, because if you can coach up [Aaron Donald] and tell AD, “Hey bro, yeah you did make that play but uh your gap over there hey hey that [ __ ] used to kill me and I look back at AD and AD is like ‘Man, this sh-t. Yeah, you right coach,” but he appreciated it.” said Brockers, “AD just understand like ‘Man, yeah I know my gap is over there. I’m out here to makeing plays but you know I appreciate him as a coach getting on my a-s about it. I’m saying I’m not getting in my gap.”
“I’m saying, we both respected you just for that because it was like ‘Damn, you know he came in here not just he’s a Yes Man or intimidating or not wanting to coach us, because we dealt with that but you came in you wanted to make us better and I think that’s the mindset we was like, ‘okay, we could respect that.”