RB CLYDE EDWARDS-HELAIRE
Q: What has this offseason been like and why did you decide to rejoin the Chiefs?
EDWARDS-HELAIRE: “Honestly this offseason has been nice. I’ve been kind of finishing some stuff with wedding planning and my fiancée, been able to do some stuff around my yard, a lot of fishing, tree cutting, stuff like that, a lot of maintenance. Really just being able to look back at a lot of things, have conversations just (about) actually becoming a free agent, it was a different experience at first and then just being able to hear, ping pong some things off different people, ping pong different situations, think about what possibly could be your future and then you make the best decision for you. Obviously, that decision was to come back home to the Chiefs and keep things going in a direction that was trending in a positive direction.”
Q: What was it like going through the free agency process and what made you want to stay in Kansas City?
EDWARDS-HELAIRE: “The free agency process at first – initially – I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s slow, but it’s different. It’s something like – I never have experienced that, it’s not like high school recruitment, it’s not like college, it’s a completely different outtake on things. You’re able to reach out if you want to, they’re able to reach out but I really just took the time to enjoy winning the Super Bowl and then you start getting little hits here and there from my agent obviously, who’s showing interest, the amount of teams, you start getting little details on things that could have possibly happened during the season or who was possibly looking at you, so you start looking at different situations. As a football player and a guy of the game, you start to look at things, you look at the draft, you look at how can I be used in this offense or the same offense or being an addition to guys in the room or guys who I would complement. In addition, like I said, that’s just one of those things that I felt like this was the best place to kind of continue my – the roll that I was going, like I said, at the point last year which was trending in an upwards direction, showing the things that I needed to showcase in order to be the player that I felt like I was when I got drafted so it's just one of those growing pains of the league, going on year five, still 24 years old. To answer your second question, KC literally is home. I left Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I was born and raised and (was) drafted to the middle of the country where everybody was telling me it’s the best place on earth. The only thing I could do was embrace it. I was doing the thing I loved, playing football and grew the most in these last five years. (I) got engaged, actually figured out what life is, buying homes, helping my mom with things, helping my parents, it’s just somewhere that I feel like I became a man. I was 20 years old leaving college not really knowing what was going on and prior to that, I was still just a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, kid at LSU just doing the thing I wanted to do which was play football. Before you know it, (with) the snap of a finger I was moving 12 hours away from home, so this is literally my next spot and it’s home and I want to continue that. (I) still can do the things that I love – ride four wheelers, hunt, fish, it’s kind of like that second sportsman paradise for me and it’s even better that I’m here doing the thing that I love and just playing ball.”
Q: In the New England game, specifically the 48-yard screen play, how big was that game and play to reinstall confidence in your role on the team?
EDWARDS-HELAIRE: “The big thing about that game and the big thing about, I’ll say, that play is just going into it I would say our offense was kind of in a stuttering position and I felt like even during the game everything was just kind of like that stagnant like, ‘Man the Chiefs really need to figure out who the hell they want to be and who they are.’ I feel like a test of myself, I’ve been in those hard games, I’ve been in situations and I’m not the type to bat an eye, some people – I’m emotional about a lot of things but when I get in those situations I’m just so blank face and it’s straightforward in knowing that the things that I want to do are things that I want to get done, I visualize it and I know, ‘Okay these are things we need to do in order to get my team up and rolling and get my guys there.’ If I had to be that spark in that situation, I knew if it wasn’t one play, it had to be multiple and that’s when I felt like I needed – I had that game in order to start stacking those things and from that point on, it was a cycle, it was like an avalanche and we just kept rolling with those things. Everybody saw that we could catch the ball, everybody saw that we could run the screen, everybody saw that we could do those things in order to win the game in pressured moments and pressured situations no matter the team, no matter the arena, the area. I felt like that was one of those things that we needed and yeah, I’ll say it was a semi-spark for me and those things of knowing – just get back to who you are and always just be yourself. I wasn’t just on my high horse, knowing like okay you’ll finally get your opportunity to start, just go out there and be Clyde.”