The Kansas City Chiefs are consistently praised for the dynamic passing game led by Patrick Mahomes. An often-overlooked factor in the team’s success is the running game providing positive yards and keeping opposing defense’s off-balance.

The versatility of Clyde Edwards-Helaire made him an excellent fit for the Chiefs offense since being selected in the 2020 NFL Draft. The former LSU running back has been very productive in his first two years with the Chiefs when he’s on the field and healthy, but those opportunities have been few and far between.

For instance, Edwards-Helaire wasn’t available during Week 17’s matchup with the Cincinnati Bengals due to a shoulder injury. He spoke with the media on Wednesday about the frustration of missing key games.

“I would say for some people, it might have been frustrating,” said Edwards-Helaire. “But I would just say it’s one of those things that comes with the game. I wouldn’t say a freak accident, but one I wasn’t really expecting to happen at the time and how it did happen. It’s just one of those injuries that I really didn’t know what was going on at the time, but once we were able to diagnose what was going on, as you said, it was the last two games of the season, we handled it how we needed to handle it and able to get me back in for this second round of playoffs.”

Edwards-Helaire was also out for the wild-card round victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers but returned last Sunday against the Buffalo Bills. He rushed for 60 yards on seven carries, averaging 8.6 yards per rush, playing just 23 snaps. As healthy and energetic as he looked in the win, Edwards-Helaire knows he still isn’t 100 percent, and neither is any player on any team playing on championship Sunday.

“I would say nobody’s 100 percent, but I would just say having that fire of really not playing,” Edwards-Helaire said. “Everybody would say fresh when I came back from the knee injury, that was the first thing everybody was saying, but I come in day in, day out and still do the cardio and still doing all the work I needed to do those weeks in order to be on the field. . . Just sitting down on my back and chilling didn’t expose that, being able to do those things in between the lines when I needed to; the things that aren’t seen on TV kind of made me look the way I look. So, it was a lot of hard work that went into looking as good as I did.”

The Chiefs hope that Edwards-Helaire has a fresh day on Sunday as they look to defeat the Bengals en route to a third straight Super Bowl appearance. They’ll need him at his best if they’re to have their best chance at winning.