Rooster seemingly not protecting chickens

So I recently got chickens and I wanted to test if the rooster would protect the hens. I let the chickens go free range and I started chasing them; the rooster went in the opposite direction of the hens. I then chased the rooster and it didn’t even try to protect itself! I don’t know if it’s just because I’m so much bigger then the rooster or something else. Is there a reason why it didn’t try to protect either the hens or itself?