Kansas City Chiefs RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire officially inked his one-year deal to return for the 2024 NFL season on Monday.
When the Chiefs declined Edwards-Helaire’s $5.461 million fifth-year option last offseason, it wasn’t a given that the former first-round draft pick would return to the club that drafted him out of LSU in 2020. Some players would be hurt that a team didn’t value them enough to pick up an option. For Edwards-Helaire, he felt the writing was on the wall.
“Obviously, I wasn’t the starter,” Edwards-Helaire told reporters on Monday. “Picking up a fifth-year option for a guy who was in rotation, and just looking at the number, looking at cap space, as a football guy and a player, you kind of see those things. And some people call it the writing on the wall.”
Edwards-Helaire didn’t let that aspect of his situation influence his decision. He became a free agent for the first time in 2024 and the process wasn’t quite like anything he’d encountered before.
“It’s different,” Edwards-Helaire explained. “It’s something like – I never have experienced that. It’s not like high school recruitment, it’s not like college, it’s a completely different outtake on things. You’re able to reach out if you want to, they’re able to reach out. But I really just took the time to enjoy winning the Super Bowl and then you start getting little hits here and there from my agent.”
As he began to get interest from other teams, he started to weigh his options and think about all the different situations. It all came down to what he really wanted for his future.
“Obviously, that decision was to come back home to the Chiefs and keep things going in a direction that was trending in a positive direction,” Edwards-Helaire said.
Why was Kansas City the best place for Edwards-Helaire?
Edwards-Helaire has seen an unfair share of criticism from the Chiefs Kingdom throughout his NFL career, largely due to his draft slot as the final pick in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft. Some of the criticism was out of his control as he battled numerous injuries early on. He’s mostly let that criticism glance off of him while he kept his head down, went to work, and did everything that his teammates and coaches asked of him.
“I’m not a real internet guy,” Edwards-Helaire explained. “I’m not saying there are not things that you feel, that you see. But you know, it’s my profession. It’s not like I’m not working on those things to do the right thing. I want to touch the ball and score every single time I can. And I know, if it’s Pat throwing a ball, or if it’s a receiver catching the ball, we want to do things 100% right every time and you know, it’s just, it’s the love, it’s the actual beauty of the game that you don’t really know what’s going to happen. But you kind of you kind of take those punches and roll with it, it builds armor. And it lets you know that the fans in K.C. really, really mean well, but it keeps you on your toes in order to keep things rolling like winning Super Bowls is no mediocre thing. I’m not shy of championships, I’ve always been on championship teams. And when I’m not in a championship, I’m usually very close. So it’s just that thing that I carry on my shoulder that I want to continue to do and be around championship teams and championship staffs.”
That championship mentality is a big reason that Edwards-Helaire wanted to remain in Kansas City. He wants to contribute to the team’s quest to win three consecutive Super Bowl titles.
He also felt that for perhaps the first time in his NFL career, he ended the year trending in a positive direction. He recorded 86 touches from scrimmage for 411 yards and two touchdowns. And he added another 15 touches for 60 yards in the playoffs, taking up primary backup duties behind second-year starter Isiah Pacheco.
“I felt like this was the best place (for me),” Edwards-Helaire explained. “I was trending in an upward direction, showing the things that I needed to showcase in order to be the player that I felt like I was when I got drafted. So, it’s just one of those growing pains of the league, going on year five, still 24 years old.”
A strong attachment to Kansas City has also grown for Edwards-Helaire, who had a coming of age of sorts as a 20-year-old moving from the only place he’d ever known to somewhere foreign. That played a role in his decision as well.
“KC literally is home,” He told reporters. “I left Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I was born and raised and (was) drafted to the middle of the country where everybody was telling me it’s the best place on earth. The only thing I could do was embrace it. I was doing the thing I loved, playing football and grew the most in these last five years. (I) got engaged, actually figured out what life is, buying homes, helping my mom with things, helping my parents, it’s just somewhere that I feel like I became a man.”
Of course, his teammates also weren’t far from his mind either when he made his decision.
“Man, I would say honestly, my teammates were one of the biggest (reasons),” Edwards-Helaire explained. “Like I said, my growth being here, the last four years, kind of understanding offense, the offense that I’ve been in. Having Pat (Mahomes) kind of lead me in the direction of the things that he sees, from a quarterback standpoint. And I’ve said it multiple interviews, having Travis (Kelce), he’s, you know, on a personal level from football to just a day-to-day basis, he is someone that’s just been in my corner and then picked me up from my lowest lows. And then when I was on my highest of highs has been, you know, trying to put a rocket on my back. So you just have that you have that camaraderie, and then just from upstairs on down, you kind of get those things.”
Edwards-Helaire also feels a sense of responsibility for the club as a veteran in the room. He’s built something special in Kansas City and knows he can pass down some of the knowledge he’s gained to running backs and even receivers on the team. It might go unnoticed in the long run, but he knows it helps the team toward their short-term and long-term goals.
“I remember just one of those, a game at the end of the year, giving Skye (Moore) a signal when Pat (Mahomes) wanted to rock and roll them on a go ball, and he ended up scoring,” Edwards-Helaire said. “So, it’s just those things that just being in the room seeing those things, seeing the little things that might not happen all the time. I just knew this was the perfect place for me to, not only become a three-time Super Bowl champion, but continue the legacy of the Chiefs and continue the things that I’m doing as a player.”
