Most of the team celebrated their Super Bowl 57 victory as the parade on Wednesday, but there was one noticeable absence.
All right, so it’s no surprise that the Kansas City Chiefs running backs room will look a lot different to begin 2023 than it did at the start of the 2022 campaign. Isiah Pacheco left his mark in the back half of 2022 and will, without question, be the top dog heading into next season. Jerick McKinnon made huge contributions to the Chiefs again in 2022 but will be a free agent this off-season and could end up elsewhere.
One name that I’ve yet to mention, the name that started 2022 at the top of the depth chart, is former first-round draft pick Clyde Edwards-Helaire. C.E.H. again found himself injured in 2022, opening the door for the aforementioned Pacheco to claim the starting role and never look back. It also stands to reason that Edwards-Helaire could be absent from the picture altogether in 2023. That would be his second absence of the calendar year a couple of months before the league year even begins.
Edwards-Helaire wasn’t just fashionably late to the Chiefs’ victory parade this week. As many of you know, he wasn’t there at all. Now, he’s not the only Chiefs player to miss out on the festivities. Wide receiver Mecole Hardman was welcoming his first son to the world. Offensive lineman and notable Big Guy Touchdown scorer Nick Allegretti was also missing in action, spending time with his wife Nicole and their newborn twins who arrived hours before the Chiefs kicked off Super Bowl 57.
So Clyde must have had some kind of family engagement going on too, right? Surely there had to be a deep-rooted reason as to why he wouldn’t be with the guys who he scrapped with all season long en route to achieving their ultimate goal last Sunday, right? Well, uh, not so much.
Edwards-Helaire skipped out on the Super Bowl parade to be a part of a fashion show in New York hosted by a guy named Nadeem Waheed, a Pakistani high-end fur and leather clothier based in the Big Apple. Waheed’s work is apparently pretty well known, and I know this because I googled his name and found this article that says he works with people like Cardi B, Mary J. Blige, Kim Kardashian, and P. Diddy. I even found some links to Waheed and Chiefs’ halftime good luck charm Fat Joe. So obviously the guy has a good thing going.
But what is Clyde doing? Even if this is something that he had planned ahead of time, does it make any sense at all to schedule involvement in a fashion show only three days after the conclusion of the biggest game of the year, a game in which your team is certainly a strong candidate to compete in? It would appear that Edwards-Helaire’s priorities have shifted a touch in the last few months. Why kick it with the boys and enjoy the hard work we’ve put in over the course of the entire season with nearly the entire fan base when you can go experience the glitz and glamour of mid-February NYC and wear some ridiculous-looking fur and leather coats?
Look, if Clyde senses the end of his football days is near, I understand wanting to broaden your horizons and make a name for yourself in the fashion game. It makes sense to make connections with people who are clearly at the top of their craft, especially if they’re slinging furs (without the red paint) to Cardi B and outfitting Fat Joe with jackets that look like extremely expensive versions of what Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers used to wear. Call me crazy, but this doesn’t seem like a move that was all that calculated from the running back who will likely soon earn the distinction of “former Chief”.
Maybe this is just a reciprocation of what the team essentially did when Edwards-Helaire was benched ahead of the team’s Week 7 matchup with the 49ers. The team knew that their days with Edwards-Helaire as the number one back were numbered or they wouldn’t have taken the steps that they did last off-season to add inevitably too much depth to the running back room, including drafting and eventually hitching their wagon to Pacheco as the RB1 of the future. Edwards-Helaire has to have the same feeling internally, and his actions certainly show an apathetic mindset for the squad if he’s willing to miss the one thing every team longs to do each season—celebrating a Super Bowl championship.
In Clyde’s defense, every year he’s played professional football or been associated with the Chiefs he’s gotten dinged up. From ankle sprains to shoulder separations to broken collarbones, Edwards-Helaire found it impossible to stay on the field during his time in K.C., something that proved to be his biggest bugaboo, particularly with an impatient fanbase. A runway is a place where he certainly won’t face the same risk of injury as he did on the football field. If healthy, he could be one of the greatest 5’7″ runway models of all time, you never know.
I would say “if this is the end of Clyde Edwards-Helaire in KC” to start this, but that seems like a foregone conclusion. It’s unfortunate that a once-promising pick and player chose to (likely) end his time in Kansas City with a move like this, but it’s ultimately not extremely surprising. I’ve tried to make it make sense, but I can’t. It makes about as much sense as a grown man wearing an overgrown leather coat in New York on a 66-degree day. But whatever, best of luck to Clyde in the future, whether it’s on the runway or the gridiron.