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Justin Carter looks at Kansas City Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire's dynasty value to see if he is a strong option for 2021.
We continue with our evaluation of the dynasty league value of high-profile players in our Dynasty Price Check series. Should you trade them or trade for them? Are they being overvalued or undervalued by dynasty players?
We've already covered players like Ezekiel Elliott, which you can read here, and James Robinson, which you can find here.
Today, we'll be looking at Kansas City Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
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Clyde Edwards-Helaire Background
This might end up being the trickiest one of these dynasty price check pieces for me to write, because in some ways we still don't really know what to make of Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
Drafted in the first round by the Chiefs in 2020, Edwards-Helaire looked poised to be the breakout fantasy player of the season, especially after Damien Williams opted out due to concerns over COVID-19.
And one week into the season, it looked like that was exactly the thing that was happening. Edwards-Helaire carries the ball 25 times against the Texans, finishing with 138 rushing yards and a touchdown. A new RB1 had arrived.
But then, Edwards-Helaire only cracked 100 rushing yards one more time over the rest of the season, and after Week 6, he never saw more than 16 carries in a game again despite going over that number in three of the first six games. His receiving production was erratic, with some weeks where he'd have eight targets and some weeks where he'd have just two.
His weird year was really capped off in the AFC Championship Game, when Edwards-Helaire scored a touchdown, but also finished with just seven yards on six carries, plus had one reception for no yards. While he did average 7.11 yards per carry in the Super Bowl, it couldn't really wash some of the stench out.
Now, we head to the offseason with a ton of unknowns. Will Damien Williams be back? Did Edwards-Helaire show enough to guarantee he has a large role next year? Can we even have a running back provide consistent value on a Patrick Mahomes team?
Let's see if we can answer some of these.
Dynasty Outlook
Per Fantasy Data, Edwards-Helaire was the pretty clear 1.01 pick in non-Superflex rookie drafts last season:
Among non-QB rookies, Edwards-Helaire ended up finishing his rookie season as the ninth-highest scoring rookie in PPR. And while dynasty rookie ADP isn't fully about season one performance, it definitely factors in, leaving everyone who had the 1.01 and went with Edwards-Helaire over Jonathan Taylor pretty unhappy.
But will we be unhappy forever?
That's the thing with Edwards-Helaire. He flashed some real potential at times, but it's hard to understand some of his struggles. Per Next Gen Stats, only five qualifying backs faced eight-plus man boxes less than CEH did. He wasn't particularly inefficient in terms of time spent behind the line of scrimmage, but his rushing yards over expectation (RYOE) ranked seventh-worst in the league at -52. Despite an 88th percentile burst score, he just didn't seem to have that extra oomph he needed to make big plays. He was 24th in big run rate. 21st in yards created per touch.
Kansas City's run blocking wasn't great, but it wasn't horrendous. Football Outsiders' offensive line stats have the Chiefs 14th in adjusted line yards. They were 32nd in power success rate and 30th in open field yards, with that last stat seeming more of an indictment of Edwards-Helaire than it is of the line.
Anyway, this all sounds extremely negative!
Edwards-Helaire is still a young running back who has some quickness and caught 36 passes. He was seventh in yards per reception among running backs and should gain some more rapport with Patrick Mahomes going forward. Still, Mahomes is such a downfield thrower that Edwards-Helaire is never going to have a huge receiving role in KC, so he might just need to get better at evading tacklers and hitting open holes if he wants to see an increase in his production.
I don't know. I think the dreams of Edwards-Helaire as an RB1 are almost done, but the Chiefs aren't going to give up on a first-round pick this easily. He'll get opportunities to succeed for at least another season, and he should see higher snap rates, which can lead to increased production even if he doesn't get better on a per touch rate. He's still a young player who has RB2 upside, even after I listed all of those negatives.
What's He Worth?
This is where it gets tough.
Trading away Edwards-Helaire right now means trading away someone you invested heavily in and doing so at a stark discount, right?
Maybe not. In fact, if you're personally low on Edwards-Helaire and think 2021 won't go well either, you don't want to hold him and get even less value later.
You won't be able to get the 1.01 for Edwards-Helaire, but I think plenty of fantasy managers would give up a first for him still, valuing his situation over the mystery that comes with a draft pick. And if the first is in the bottom half of the round, you can probably wrangle a solid starting player at wide receiver out of your trade partner as well.
In terms of buying in on Edwards-Helaire this offseason, I think the price would be too high for me personally, but he's definitely got a lot of positives. If I was one piece away from having a solid, competitive team and could package a pick and a role player for him and his upside, sure. But I'd need to be pretty sure that I wasn't messing up.
In terms of rebuilding teams trading veterans for Edwards-Helaire, sure! But rebuilding teams should probably be pretty protective of their picks and try to not lose a first for CEH. He's still potentially a multi-year starter in the NFL, but this is a really nice draft class, especially at wide receiver. I don't think I want to miss out on the star potential some of those guys have just to buy low-ish on last year's 1.01.
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