Kansas City Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire is entering an important year to show the team’s coaches he is the franchise back they drafted him to be. Thus far, CEH’s NFL career hasn’t gone the way Kansas City had hoped, and his performance was far less than initially advertised when he first entered the league fresh off a National Championship season at Louisiana State.
Following his rookie campaign, when he missed three of the Chiefs’ last five games of the 2020 regular season and the wildcard round of the postseason due to injury, expectations were high for Edwards-Helaire to have a more productive year in his sophomore season. Instead, CEH missed six games throughout the 2021 season and rushed for 517 yards in ten games (286 yards short from his 2020 totals). Needless to say, 2021 was not a good year for the 23-year-old, which was once compared to Barry Sanders, Priest Holmes, and Maurice Jones-Drew when he was drafted.
But CEH had a reasonable explanation for his lackluster performance the previous year. On February 16, an episode from Fansided’s Arrowhead Addict podcast featured an interview with CEH shortly after the result of Super Bowl LVI on February 13.
I’m not sure how something like this slipped through the cracks and didn’t gain more attention. Still, nonetheless, CEH explained to AA hosts Sterling Holmes and Matt Conner that he had undergone gall bladder surgery last spring, which ultimately hindered the running back’s offseason and training camp regimen.
“After the Super Bowl last year (Super Bowl 55), on the first Thursday in March (2021), I had gall bladder surgery,” Edwards-Helaire said. “My gall bladder completely stopped working. I was down to about 160 pounds, and the first time I took a rep – catching a football since the Super Bowl – was the first OTA practice,” he recalled. “I didn’t run, didn’t do anything all the way up until that point, and was still dealing with stitches and recovery over the course of the summer and went out and still had fall camp and did the whole nine yards,” he explained.
2021 wasn’t the first time CEH had a rough offseason. The entire 2020 NFL draft class had their rookie offseasons wholly wiped out due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Edwards-Helaire mentioned that the lack of a proper offseason took a toll on his progression as a rookie.
“Even before that, it was no break, and it was straight from a National Championship then straight into training and going straight to football,” he said.
However, CEH says he’s reached out to other veteran players to help him properly plan out his offseason and feels the 2022 season could be his best campaign yet.
“Being able to pinpoint, I’ve been able to talk with guys – talk to other vets – and actually get my offseason planned and scheduled and work on things I think I need to work on – injury prevention things – just pretty much everything I felt I should’ve done last year instead of dealing with a stomach surgery,” he explained. “This year, [I’m] fully healthy, and now this offseason is going to be perfect for me to do the things I need to do to have the season I feel like I should have.
So far, CEH has played in 23 out of a possible 33 regular season games for the Chiefs over his first two seasons. Following the first five games of the 2021 season, CEH missed the next five games due to a sprained MCL and temporarily landed on injured reserve. In Week 11, Edwards-Helaire returned against the Dallas Cowboys and rushed for 63 yards and a score on 12 carries in a 19-9 victory. Over the next four weeks, CEH’s production steadily dropped. In Week 16, he suffered a bruised shoulder injury during a 34-31 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, which caused him to miss the last two games of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs.
This year, there will need to be a remarkable improvement in Edwards-Helaire’s production, especially with many new running backs looking to cease the starting job in Kansas City’s backfield. General manager Brett Veach loaded the running back room full of talent over the offseason, including the free agent signing of veteran Ronald Jones II, bringing back Derrick Gore, and drafting Isaih Pacheco.
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