Clyde Edwards-Helaire‘s professional football journey hasn’t been an easy one.
The most recent issue is, of course, the biggest one, as Edwards-Helaire will forever be attached to “the fumble,” an unfortunate and untimely mistake that, despite being his first fumble in just over a year of games in the NFL, cost the K.C. Chiefs a potentially important early-season game against the Baltimore Ravens. Those sorts of turnovers will turn a fan base as quickly as anything else, and now Edwards-Helaire will have to prove some more doubters wrong.
The key word there is “more”, because Edwards-Helaire already had his detractors from the get-go.
Misallocated Resources
From the moment the Kansas City Chiefs wrote “Clyde” on a draft card, the criticism began. Back in those days it had nothing to do with Edwards-Helaire as a person or a player. It was just about the position he plays. For some, the idea of taking a running back so early in the draft was a personnel mistake, a misallocation of resources for a team with obvious needs elsewhere for talent and depth.
What made it even worse was that the Chiefs had a history of trading away even the opportunity to grab a top-tier talent in the draft. Edwards-Helaire is the only first-round pick made by the organization since 2017. That sort of clogged up pipeline keeps the Chiefs from adding impactful young talent at key positions to control long-term costs.
While it helped to know that Patrick Mahomes was behind the choice, the reality is that many in Chiefs Kingdom were already poking at the pick before Edwards-Helaire ever stepped onto the field at Arrowhead.