The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Houston Texans in Week 1 and rookie RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire had his footprints all over the victory.
His 138-yard rushing performance was the most by any player in a debut since former Chiefs RB Kareem Hunt rushed for 148 yards against the New England Patriots in 2017. Over 100 of those yards came after contact. He was also as elusive as advertised, forcing seven missed tackles on the night, which tied for the best ever by a rookie in Week 1.
Following the game, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes was asked about the performance of his rookie running back and he had nothing but good things to say about what Edwards-Helaire did in his debut. In fact, he wasn’t surprised in the slightest about Edwards-Helaire having a big debut.
“I mean he’s been doing it since the day he got here,” Mahomes said. “He’s been working hard, he’s been learning from his mistakes and he’s been running the ball between the tackles and catching out of the backfield and so, I thought the offensive line did a great job of giving him holes to run through and he hit it every single time and so, he’s going to keep getting better. It’s another weapon that I kind of have in this offense and we’re going to keep doing whatever we can to keep moving the ball and scoring touchdowns.”
The idea that Edwards-Helaire is only scratching the surface, that he’s going to keep getting better is an exciting one. This was just the tip of the iceberg for him. Following the game, Edwards-Helaire explained that he, along with the other rookies, had worked hard for that moment and knew what was expected of them from the get-go.
“Just through our practice and through our camp, everybody, as far as the rookies, we kind of knew what we had to bring in as far as coming into a Super Bowl-defending team,” Edwards-Helaire said. “Come in and play your part — play your role — but do it 100 percent and give it 100 percent effort every time. We had a rookie group message and we always kind of were hinting at each other like, ‘Man, we’re here for a reason. We’re doing the things that we need to. On game day everything will show up, if we do the hard work at practice game day will be easy.’ Ultimately, it all came into fruition, everybody did those things that they needed to do as far as preparation. One game time they showed up.”
Edwards-Helaire certainly played his role to the fullest extent in Week 1 and he has a great week of tape to build off of heading into Week 2. He and the rest of the Chiefs’ rookies now have the task of getting prepared for their first AFC West opponent of the season. It’ll be different, but if Week 1 is any indication, they’ll be up to the challenge.
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