Clyde Edwards-Helaire Discusses Role With Chiefs in Year Four

At Chiefs training camp, Edwards-Helaire talked about his potential role with the club this coming season.

The Kansas City Chiefs' running back room isn't greatly different on paper than it was a year ago, but the order of the depth chart and the addition of undrafted free agent Deneric Prince have thrown some new wrinkles into the mix. 

For the first time in his career, 2020 first-round draft pick Clyde Edwards-Helaire entered training camp not being expected to assume a first-team role in the backfield. The former LSU Tigers standout is coming off a tumultuous 2022 campaign that saw him begin the year as the team's starter but over time, rookie Isiah Pacheco and even veteran Jerick McKinnon leapfrogged him in the pecking order. 

Now entering perhaps the most important training camp of his NFL career, Edwards-Helaire evaluates things as going "pretty well" thus far. On Friday, he spoke about what he needs to establish this time around. 

"Like it's been every year," Edwards-Helaire said. "Whenever my number is called, I know I'll be there to do my job and do what I need to do as far as being on the field as a running back. It's never really been a question of what I can [do] or what's going on. It's been whenever my number is called, I just go." 

Injuries and inconsistent play have rendered Edwards-Helaire either unavailable or ineffective at times throughout his career, and 2022 was no different. After recording a combined 325 yards and five touchdowns on the ground and through the air in the first four weeks of last season, he played just 102 snaps the rest of the way and was inactive from Week 12 onward. It was yet another injury-shortened roller coaster of a year, and one that left his previous job in jeopardy. The Chiefs didn't appear to assign him a specific role heading into the offseason, so Edwards-Helaire said he instead got back to the basics with his training. 

"This offseason I really was trying to figure out what my role would be," Edwards-Helaire said. "Typically, it's more of you kind of ask beforehand like, 'What would be my [role] whatever is going into the next season?' I remember one time, it was more catching and running more routes out of the backfield because that's what I was told going into the offseason. This offseason, it was just general, it was workouts, honestly. Doing my running back things, doing the things that I feel like [were] my building blocks when I first came into the league."

With Pacheco expected to be cleared for contact in the coming weeks and having rushed for 830 yards as a rookie, Kansas City has its No. 1 running back spot sorted out entering the season. Behind him, McKinnon logged a career-high 512 receiving yards and 10 total touchdowns last year and is easily the Chiefs' best pass-protecting halfback. Prince, while unproven in terms of in-game reps, has been a camp standout and brings an intriguing athletic profile to the table. Assuming the Chiefs carry four running backs into the regular season, there's still clearly room for Edwards-Helaire. Where does he fit, though?

At his best, Edwards-Helaire is somewhat similar to the player he was at LSU: a small running back who packs a punch, displays quality contact balance and is a dangerous receiving threat either out wide or out of the backfield. At his worst, however, he's either not on the field due to injury or he struggles to find success in the run game when he is active. He's almost surely going to play a reserve role for the Chiefs once camp breaks, but that doesn't bother him. Edwards-Helaire knows that his ultimate role is up to the team to decide, and he'll be ready for whatever it is. 

"That's not my space to kind of say," Edwards-Helaire said. "It's really, like I said, whenever they give me a number or they call my number, it doesn't matter. I'll run between the tackles, I'll catch out of the backfield. Even beforehand, like going into the Super Bowl, that whole week I practiced receiving. I can't sit here and tell you exactly [what] I feel my role should be, but I know I can do whatever on the field."

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