Mike Vrabel knows as well as anyone how difficult it is to stop Derrick Henry.
“He’s a very unique player. Great speed, great power, strength,” Vrabel said. “He’s just a different body type than what anybody would go against, and so it’s unique in that regard. ... We know what he’s about. Build speed and stiff arm and all that other stuff.”
Vrabel was Henry's coach with the Tennessee Titans from 2018 through 2023, and now he'll face his former running back Sunday night when the Baltimore Ravens host the New England Patriots. Henry is in his second season in the Ravens' backfield, and Vrabel is in his first at the helm of the Patriots.
“He’s a great coach. He does a great job, and they’ve been doing a great job this year,” Henry said. “That’s why they’re in the conversation and the running for the top seed in the AFC.”
Baltimore (7-7) trails Pittsburgh by one game atop the AFC North. The Patriots (11-3) lead the AFC East even after last week's loss to Buffalo, and New England can clinch a postseason berth with a win this week or a loss by either Houston or Indianapolis.
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye will have a prime-time showcase to boost his MVP case. Baltimore's Lamar Jackson, who has won that award twice, has struggled after returning from a hamstring injury but looked better the past couple of games.
The Ravens were a three-point favorite according to BetMGM Sportsbook as of Thursday night — despite New England's vastly superior record. The Patriots split with Buffalo, but that's their only victory against a team that currently has a winning record.
Of course, the Ravens don't currently have a winning record themselves.
The Ravens are home this weekend, but Baltimore is only 3-5 at home this season. A loss to New England would make this the worst home regular season in franchise history. The Ravens finished 3-5 at home in 2015.
Baltimore is 22-5 in home prime-time games under coach John Harbaugh, but 0-2 this season.
New England, meanwhile, is 6-0 as a visitor this season, the only team in the league without a road loss.
For teams that aren't in the same division, the Patriots and Ravens have played their share of memorable games. In 2007, Baltimore came close to ending New England's unbeaten regular season, falling 27-24 at home when Tom Brady threw a last-minute touchdown pass.
Beginning with the 2009 season, the Patriots and Ravens had four playoff meetings in a six-year span, with each team winning two. New England won 23-20 in the AFC title game in January 2012 when Billy Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal that would have tied the game. A year later, Baltimore went on the road and beat the Patriots 28-13 for the AFC championship en route to winning the Super Bowl.
The teams haven't played as much lately. Baltimore won the last meeting 37-26 in 2022.
One of the things that’s made Maye so dangerous this season is his ability to throw deep passes.
According to Sportradar, entering this week Maye ranked second in the NFL behind Matthew Stafford (32) and was tied with Sam Darnold, Dak Prescott and Jordan Love with 26 completions that traveled 20 or more yards in the air.
Maye said he's had to weigh the potential of deep passes against shorter, safer throws since college.
“I’m just trying to take the plays that the defense gives me and realize that moving the chains and being second-and-4 versus second-and-10 is better — so just challenging that,” he said. “But at the same time, you’ve got to keep the defense on its toes for not squatting on routes and let them know that we can hit one over their head.”
Jackson hasn't missed a game since Week 8 but hasn't had a full week of practice since early November. This week he missed Wednesday's practice because of an illness but proclaimed himself good to go Thursday.
“We just have to win this game and win out, basically,” Jackson said. “I’m not going to say it’s a playoff game, because I feel like every game is a playoff game. We’re trying to win.”
AP Sports Writer Kyle Hightower contributed to this report.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel reacts after a touchdown scored by quarterback Drake Maye during the first half of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry (22) runs the ball during the second half of an NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
The head of the U.S. agency for enforcing workplace civil rights posted a social media call-out urging white men to come forward if they have experienced race or sex discrimination at work.
“Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws," U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas, a vocal critic of DEI, wrote on X Wednesday evening. The post urged eligible workers to reach out to the agency “as soon as possible" and referred users to the agency's fact sheet on “DEI-related discrimination” for more information.
Lucas' post, viewed millions of times, was shared about two hours after Vice President JD Vance posted an article he said “describes the evil of DEI and its consequences," which also received millions of views. Lucas responded to Vance's post saying: “Absolutely right @JDVance. And precisely because this widespread, systemic, unlawful discrimination primarily harmed white men, elites didn’t just turn a blind eye; they celebrated it. Absolutely unacceptable; unlawful; immoral.”
She added that the EEOC “won’t rest until this discrimination is eliminated.” Neither the agency nor Vance responded immediately to requests for additional comment.
Since being named acting chair of the EEOC in January, Lucas has been shifting the agency's focus to prioritize “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination,” aligning with President Donald Trump's own anti-DEI executive orders. Trump named Lucas as the agency's chair in November.
Earlier this year, the EEOC along with the Department of Justice issued two “technical assistance” documents attempting to clarify what might constitute “DEI-related Discrimination at Work” and providing guidance on how workers can file complaints over such concerns. The documents took broad aim at practices such as training, employee resource groups and fellowship programs, warning such programs — depending on how they’re constructed — could run afoul of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race and gender.
Those documents have been criticized by former agency commissioners as misleading for portraying DEI initiatives as legally fraught.
David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the NYU School of Law, said Lucas's latest social media posts demonstrate a “fundamental misunderstanding of what DEI is.”
“It’s really much more about creating a culture in which you get the most out of everyone who you’re bringing on board, where everyone experiences fairness and equal opportunity, including white men and members of other groups,” Glasgow said.
The Meltzer Center tracks lawsuits that are likely to affect workplace DEI practices, including 57 cases of workplace discrimination. Although there are instances in which it occurs on a case-by-case basis, Glasgow said he has not seen “any kind of systematic evidence that white men are being discriminated against.”
He pointed out that Fortune 500 CEOs are overwhelmingly white men, and that relative to their share of the population, the demographic is overrepresented in corporate senior leadership, Congress, and beyond.
“If DEI has been this engine of discrimination against white men, I have to say it hasn’t really been doing a very good job at achieving that,” Glasgow said.
Jenny Yang, a former EEOC chair and now a partner at law firm Outten & Golden, said it is “unusual” and “problematic” for the head of the agency to single out a particular demographic group for civil rights enforcement.
“It suggests some sort of priority treatment,” Yang said. “That’s not something that sounds to me like equal opportunity for all.”
On the other hand, the agency has done the opposite for transgender workers, whose discrimination complaints have been deprioritized or dropped completely, Yang said. The EEOC has limited resources, and must accordingly prioritize which cases to pursue. But treating charges differently based on workers' identities goes against the mission of the agency, she said.
“It worries me that a message is being sent that the EEOC only cares about some workers and not others," Yang said.
The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE - Andrea Lucas, nominee to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, June 18, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
