Getty Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire
On a nationally televised game in crunch time against a conference rival, Kansas City Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire experienced one of the worst feelings you can feel as an athlete: letting your teammates down.
Late in the fourth quarter when the Chiefs were in line to kick a field goal and win a tight ball game on Sunday Night Football, the second-year back fumbled the football and gave possession back to the Baltimore Ravens, who ran out the game clock and won the game by picking up a first down in four plays.
ALL the latest Chiefs news straight to your inbox! Join the Heavy on Chiefs newsletter here!
Ravens force the fumble on Clyde Edwards-Helaire!
Granted, Kansas City’s defense was the reason the game was so close, with the score at 36-35 in favor of a banged-up Baltimore squad at that point in the contest. But Edwards-Helaire’s fumble was essentially a nail in the coffin for a Chiefs team that could do very little to stop Lamar Jackson and the Ravens offense in prime time.
However, Edwards-Helaire’s teammates didn’t want the team’s lead back to linger on the disastrous play after the game was over. That’s why quarterback Patrick Mahomes gave him a pep talk following the Week 2 loss.
Mahomes: ‘Don’t Let One Play Define You’
“We’ll need him the whole entire season. Don’t let one play define you,” Mahomes told the media postgame of what he said to Edwards-Helaire following the fourth-quarter fumble. “It’s a long season. Obviously, we lost to a good football team, and we played at their place. It’s a long season, and if we want to be great and have a chance to have another run at this thing, he’s going to be an important part of it.”
Mahomes is right. One play does not define a player, especially someone in Edwards Helaire’s shoes, who is the primary running back in Kansas City and will have ample opportunities to move past what has been up until this point the worst play of his NFL career.
Fellow teammate Travis Kelce also spoke of what he told Edwards-Helaire after the late-game blunder.
“Man up. Man Up. It is what it is, and that’s not just to Clyde; that’s anyone in the building and in the locker room,” Kelce explained during his press conference after the game. “We will never point fingers and say it’s just one person’s loss. That is not how we roll at Kansas City. We’ll fix it in the four quarters of football. We’ll fix it.”
CEH Has Struggled to Find Momentum in 2021
Outside of the Week 2 fumble, Edwards-Helaire has struggled to put together a strong stat sheet this season, which isn’t entirely his fault. Through two games, he has 27 rushing attempts for 89 yards — 3.3 yards per attempt — along with three catches on three targets for 29 yards, per Pro Football Reference. In a season that includes the first-ever 17-game regular season schedule for NFL teams, the former LSU back is on pace for just 756 rushing yards and 256 receiving yards. Those would both be lower than his totals in 2020, his rookie season.
However, the Chiefs, who have a completely revamped offensive line that is still building chemistry, have faced two of the toughest defensive front sevens in the NFL during their first two regular-season games in the Cleveland Browns and the Ravens. Those defensive units are currently ranked fourth and 10th, respectively, in yards per carry allowed through the first two weeks of the 2021 season, per NFL.com. Granted those numbers are skewed due to it being a small sample size, but they are nevertheless a little symbolic of the battle in the trenches Kansas City has faced at the start of the season.
In Week 3, the Chiefs will have their first divisional game of the season against the Los Angeles Chargers, who rank 30th in the league through two weeks in rushing yards allowed (324) and 31st in yards per carry given up (5.6).
Maybe Week 3 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium is where Edwards-Helaire has a big, bounce-back game.
READ MORE:
- Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid Address Costly Turnovers in Loss to Ravens
- Twitter Torches Chiefs’ Clyde Edwards-Helaire for Costly Fumble vs. Ravens
- NFL Rumors: Why It’s in Eric Bieniemy’s Best Interest to Take USC Job