Critics wanted to ‘set me on fire’: KC Chiefs’ Edwards-Helaire kept faith, surges ahead
Two weeks after his first NFL fumble sabotaged the sort of late (would-be) game-winning drive we’d started taking for granted as the failsafe of the Chiefs, Clyde Edwards-Helaire stood in the interview room in Philadelphia on Sunday and basked in the victory and a 102-yard rushing day.
Along the way, he reflected on his sense that Chiefs fans had been wanting to “set me on fire” between then and now.
Exaggerated as the term might be, no doubt a foul mood toward him had developed.
Looking back, perhaps it had been stoked by his inauspicious season debut, 43 yards on 14 carries while somehow missing a startlingly open hole or two. That left some wondering about the trajectory of his encore season after a promising start his rookie year was dulled by an ankle injury late in the season. In fact, he looked a step slow and hesitant in the opener and not quite same guy you could nearly always expect to land a few yards past where he seemed to be going down.
Then, after the jarring slip-up against the Ravens and the ensuing howling, his popularity suffered another blow when he fumbled again in a now-rare second straight loss for the Chiefs a week later against the Chargers. (Though it bears mention he redeemed himself with 17 carries for 100 yards that day.)
And just maybe the carping was all the more heightened in light of coach Andy Reid’s reassurance between the losses that Edwards-Helaire was not a “fumbler.”
“That’s not his deal,” Reid said … only to have it be his deal again.
But Reid’s assessment was well-confirmed by data, including that CEH only fumbled one of his 493 touches in college at LSU, and his vision is of the big picture over time.
So his broader faith in him remained firm even as doubts surged elsewhere.
Not that Reid doesn’t have high standards. It’s just that he reckoned Edwards-Helaire needed him on his side instead of in his grill.
Or as CEH described Reid’s words to him, “ ‘Bro, just chill and go ahead and do your thing.’ ”
“It’s not, ‘Ooh, the world’s ending ...,’ ” Edwards-Helaire said after his second straight 100-yard rushing game helped the Chiefs beat the Eagles 42-30 on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.
Mistakes are human and going to happen, Reid reassured him. That was a point Reid reiterated on Monday when he spoke of how Edwards-Helaire has responded to it all.
“Things happen,” Reid said, adding that people who know football understand that.
So no doubt that confidence, and continued reliance, helped enable Edwards-Helaire’s resurgence to the first back-to-back 100-yard rushing days for a Chief since Kareem Hunt did it in 2017.
In fact, Edwards-Helaire told that story in the context of his appreciation of Reid on the occasion of his 100th victory with the Chiefs.
And how fitting for Reid that it was in Philly, no less, where Edwards noted he’d worn a “Fresh Prince of Helaire” shirt he didn’t quite feel like showing off postgame.
Beyond Reid’s empowering trust, it’s also true that Edwards-Helaire through Sunday had risen to seventh in the NFL in rushing (58 carries for 291 yards, 5.0 yards a carry) and appreciates that it’s with the considerable help of a new offensive line finding its personality by largely blasting the way in the run game.
That makes for intriguing timing with Buffalo coming to town on Sunday just under a year after Edwards-Helaire rushed for a career-best 161 yards (of the Chiefs’ 245) against the Bills in his sixth NFL game.
(Impaired by the ankle injury in his return after missing three games, he managed only 7 yards on 6 carries in their AFC Championship Game rematch).
Just the same, the back-to-back 100-yard games may or may not mean he’ll be a focal point on Sunday.
“We want to be able to mix it up, one or the other (pass and run) and sometimes both. I’m not big on trends,” Reid said. “Once you have trends, those other guys are pretty good that you’re playing against, and they knock you out of the ballpark. We want to be able to do both and do it when we want to do it.”
But even in the Patrick Mahomes era, particularly as defenses continue to try to adjust to him and the infinite problems posed by Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill, the run game is a dimension the Chiefs need to be able to engage.
“I think you saw today, once you run the ball a lot, the defense will come up a little bit and you can kind of hit them over the top,” Mahomes said.
You also saw something Sunday in Edwards-Helaire himself.
Perhaps more than anything else, his rebound is about something hard-wired in the diminutive back, who is perhaps generously listed as 5-foot-7.
After all, he’s endured people scoffing about him since he was 7 or 8 years old. Or at least ever since he started playing football.
“And, you know, it’s more publicly seen as far as now,” he said. “But I let everybody else kind of waste their time with that while I go to work.”
All the “unnecessary” comments, he said, don’t change what he knows he has to do: “keep moving.”
Because however else it’s been going, good or bad, well …
“The next play,” he said, “is my opportunity to do something great.”
His game has plenty of room to grow, of course, and not just from the standpoint of restoring a prevailing belief that he’s not a fumbler.
His blocking remains a work in progress and his role in the receiving game remains muted compared to what was expected … though he did have a touchdown reception on Sunday in the form of a 1-yard underhand pass from Mahomes.
The sleight-of-hand nature of the play left Edwards-Helaire somewhat proud of himself for not tipping his excitement as they broke the huddle and lined up.
But he was less circumspect when describing it, blurting out that the play was called “Tom and Jerry” — information that the Chiefs and most teams try to avoid.
“Oops, I named the play,” he said with a thin smile. “My bad.”
The colorful moniker, a knack of Reid’s in play-naming, would seem to be an homage to the old cat-and-mouse cartoon. You might be able to guess the role Edwards-Helaire had:
“Obviously,” he said, “I’m ‘Jerry.’ ”
In his case, a mouse that has roared back.
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.