Kansas City Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire has had quite the fall from grace, both in reality and fantasy. As a former first-round pick (both in the 2020 NFL draft and 2020 fantasy drafts), CEH’s career is now teetering on the brink. Is there any hope for fantasy value this season? What is his fantasy football projection for 2023?
Get a trade offer in your dynasty or redraft league? Not sure who to start or sit this week? Leverage PFN’s FREE fantasy tools — the Fantasy Football Trade Analyzer and Calculator and Start/Sit Optimizer! Put the finishing touch on your A+ draft with 1 of our 425+ fantasy football team names.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s 2023 Fantasy Projection
When the Chiefs spent a first-round pick on Edwards-Helaire in the 2020 NFL Draft, the hype for fantasy football got out of control. My biggest fantasy draft blunder in recent memory is taking CEH over Derrick Henry in the first round that season.
I, like many others, had visions of grandeur. We saw 2017 Kareem Hunt. We saw the Chiefs’ RB1 and couldn’t fathom anything other than greatness playing with Patrick Mahomes.
Running back talent may not move the needle much when it comes to NFL wins, but it matters in fantasy. If you give Matt Breida the same exact usage and volume as Saquon Barkley, you will not get anywhere near the same level of production.
It quickly became apparent that CEH was, at best, a replacement-level talent. After three seasons, one can argue he’s not even that.
The biggest selling point for CEH was that he was an excellent receiver joining the most pass-heavy team in the NFL with the best quarterback the league has ever seen. While he did average a respectable 13.5 PPR fantasy points per game as a rookie, relative to his ADP, he was a colossal bust.
Throughout his career, Edwards-Helaire has been a solid rusher. His career yards per carry average is 4.4. It’s the receiving profile that we all missed on. Simply put, CEH is not a good receiver.
How do we know this? The Chiefs gave him a 10.9% target share as a rookie. After converting just 66.7% of his 54 targets into receptions, the team was no longer interested.
As a sophomore, Edwards-Helaire’s target share dipped to 6.8%. In his third season, it fell further to 6.1%. Targets are earned. If CEH was an adept receiver, he wouldn’t have seen his passing-game role decrease every year of his career.
More concerning is CEH’s snap share and opportunity share. Those numbers also dropped each year. As a rookie, CEH played 58% of the snaps, and his 66.8% opportunity share was 12th in the league. Last season, he played 32% of the snaps, and his opportunity share was 38.4%, 49th in the league.
Edwards-Helaire lost his passing-down role to 30-year-old Jerick McKinnon in 2021. Last season, he lost his lead rushing role to rookie seventh-rounder Isiah Pacheco. The Chiefs declined to pick up CEH’s fifth-year option. They clearly do not see him as part of the future of this team.
Should You Draft Clyde Edwards-Helaire This Year?
We must tune out all of the positive offseason noise. Teams garner no benefit from speaking ill of their players. The Chiefs made CEH a healthy inactive for the Super Bowl, which they won.
Actions speak volumes. The Chiefs’ actions tell us that this backfield is Pacheco and McKinnon. Any role Edwards-Helaire may have will be minimal, at best.
Fantasy managers are wise to this fact, but CEH does have an ADP of RB56, No. 167 overall. That is considerably higher than it was early in the Summer, likely due to positive training camp reports.
I guess that makes me way off from consensus on CEH because I didn’t even rank him, and I ranked 85 running backs for redraft. I do not view him as relevant in fantasy at all, and I don’t see any realistic path to relevance. Even if the Chiefs were to suffer injuries to running backs in front of him, they will likely sign or trade for someone before turning back to CEH. There is no scenario where I would draft CEH this season.
