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The Kansas City Chiefs saw Le’Veon Bell notch just 17 snaps and six touches for 39 yards in his debut. Despite limited opportunity in his first outing, Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes came away impressed by what Bell was able to show in his first game as a Chief. After just one game, they’re both steadfast in the belief that he’s a perfect complement to rookie RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
“It was great,” Reid said of Bell’s debut following the game. “It was two-fold because we had both those guys playing. It was great to get Le’Veon (Bell) in and get him going. I thought he was very productive. There are a couple things he’ll learn from, just with the offense, but I thought the run game part of it was excellent. He had good, positive yardage and ran hard. It was great for 25 too, Clyde (Edwards-Helaire), coming off six days rest. That’s a new thing for a rookie, how are you going to handle that? I love the way he did. He ran hard and had, again, great production.”
Mahomes echoed his head coach, praising both running backs and pointing out that there are a few details to work out. I imagine some of those details will revolve around picking up free pass rushers on a blitz or getting their head turned more quickly in the passing game.
“I thought they did well,” Mahomes said. “I thought Clyde obviously continued to put up tough runs and break tackles and get different types of stuff. And I thought Le’Veon did a great job coming in off a week of practice where you only get a couple days and being able to step right in and have a few big runs and really get his footing. Obviously, there’s still some little details that we need to work out here and there, but for someone to come in and have success like that early is really exciting.”
Ultimately this was the best you could possibly hope for given the game flow. The team lost some snaps on offense because the defense and special teams both scored touchdowns. Reid noted that when evaluating what Bell was able to do in his first week with the team.
“The defense’s snaps were way up, and the offense’s snaps were way down,” Reid said on Monday. “I think we weren’t able to get the whole gameplan going the way you necessarily wanted to do or get into that rhythm by the time you’re up by quite a few points, which is a great thing. That makes the head coach very happy. That cuts down on opportunities for some of the offensive guys to do their thing. I would say in that case, with Le’Veon (Bell), just doing both, rotating with Clyde (Edwards-Helaire), it’s already cut in half there with that and having the number of plays cut back. We had a pretty healthy load for him in there as we went. You saw the two-back set where we shifted both of them out. We had a couple of other things in there that we can utilize his skill and Clyde’s.”
As the Chiefs prepare to face the New York Jets at Arrowhead Stadium in Week 8, you can rest assured that Bell will have his head in the playbook. He’ll want to be prepared to make a big impact against his former team but he’ll also want to build upon the success that he saw with his new team. Reid has plenty of creative stuff up his sleeves to get both Bell and Edwards-Helaire on the field, involved and producing at a high level.
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