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The Kansas City Chiefs announced on Tuesday that running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, a former first-round pick in 2020, is back into the team on a one-year deal. Edwards-Helaire never lived up to the expectations of a first-round running back and struggled during his initial time with the franchise.
With not much movement on the position and plenty of huge contracts given to the stars who reached the market, keeping Edwards-Helaire on the roster on a cheap deal was a good move by Brett Veach, especially as they can't spend on less important positions with the new contract given to Chris Jones.
Still, Chiefs fans weren't impressed to see Edwards-Helaire given a new deal and staying with the team, especially as he lost the starting job to Isiah Pacheco and with J. K. Dobbins visiting the franchise prior to the 2024 NFL Draft:
Clyde Edwards-Helaire's career - is the Chiefs running back a bust?
It's certainly fair to call him so, especially as he lost his starting job to a seventh-round pick. Yes, it's easier to find good running backs in the late rounds of the draft, but the Chiefs had a golden opportunity and they squandered it.
He was the final pick of the first round in the 2020 NFL Draft and, looking at it isolatedly, it was never a good move to start - not after Damien Williams got over 100 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns during the Super Bowl that the Chiefs won two months before.
But his production was even worse. He was never the dual-threat running back that Andy Reid thought he could've become, injuries started to take a toll on his body and, when he had the ball, he didn't make things happen. When Isiah Pacheco took over as the starter, it was a clear sign that the bust label was applied to him.
It makes sense for the Chiefs to re-sign him as a backup running back as he already knows the system and how things work, but make no mistake: the fact that the franchise waited one month after free agency started shows exactly what they think of him.
