Let's get one thing clear from the top: nothing is clear here.
No announcements have been made. No sources have given a heads-up. No rumors are circulating. All we have is a bit of a cryptic post and our feeble attempts to understand it. Still, we're intrigued enough to posit the question.
This is complete conjecture but we're left wondering what CEH meant in a recent Instagram post.
Kansas City Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire made his recent post on Instagram (as of press time) an intriguing one—one that reads a bit cryptic and yet seems to hint that his return could come soon.
Let's take a look and maybe you can help us solve the riddle:
That's an obvious photo of Edwards-Helaire in his Chiefs uniform with a quick caption that reads "22..5..⌛" On the surface, it might feel a bit like the former ABC drama Lost when trying to figure out what a sequence of numbers could possibly represent. (Anyone remember those numbers>)
Is there some deep or hidden or intended meaning here? That's not for us to say with any certainty, but it makes us want to guess. That's because it could line up with a potential return date for Edwards-Helaire in the very near future.
While Edwards-Helaire's number is 25 right now, his uniform number during his college days at LSU was 22. From there, five is the first week of the season in which Edwards-Helaire is eligible to return. He officially began the year on the team's NFI list, forcing him to sit out the first four games. After that fourth and final game (which will come next weekend), CEH could be good to go. From there, the final emoji is an hourglass, which insinuates some sort of timeline or waiting period.
So it's possible that he's pointing to himself saying "22 is on the way in Week 5. Just wait for it." It's also possible that he sat on his phone and hit random numbers. Or that it has nothing to do with any of us and we should feel stupid for even trying to understand it. We're okay with that.
If Edwards-Helaire is ready to go in Week 5, things are going to get really interesting on the active roster. Carson Steele, Samaje Perine, and Keaontay Ingram are good to go for Week 3. Kareem Hunt will join that mix in Week 4 with a bit more on-boarding next week with the Chiefs. That should take Ingram out of the equation. If Edwards-Helaire joins thereafter, that means Steele or Perine or Hunt would make way to bring him in (or maybe Steele stays at FB and the Chiefs roll four-deep).
The issue becomes compounded if Isiah Pacheco is out the minimum six games. That would put him back just a few games after Edwards-Helaire. At that point, the Chiefs will have an overabundance of options and some tougher decisions would have to be made—unless Perine or Hunt make it an easy call with poor play.
For now, the only thing we know is that Hunt is on the roster and will provide a spark in Week 4. It's possible Edwards-Helaire is saying he's next in line, ready to taxi down the runway, but that requires some hopeful reading into a cryptic post on social media.