AFC Notes: Bo Nix, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Broncos, Chiefs

Broncos

Broncos HC Sean Payton praised first-round QB Bo Nix despite their rotations throughout the early days of camp.

“We’ll see the tape and evaluate it, but I thought overall (he did) pretty well,” Payton said Wednesday, via Parker Gabriel of The Denver Post. “There’s clips, plays that you’ll correct it and there’s others where you’re going to say, ‘Hey.’ … He ran with the ones and I like his progress.”

Clyde Edwards-Helaire

Chiefs RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire discussed missing practices over the course of the last four seasons as he battles with PTSD.

“Sometimes I’m admitted into the hospital, something like I can’t stop throwing up and it’s just, I [don’t] know [anything] pretty much to stop it,” he said, via ESPN. “Real bad dehydration … but it’s really just mentally just not being there. It is one of those things where early on guys who kind of pay attention like Travis [Kelce] and Kadarius [Toney], at times they can even, they’ll know ahead of time like, ‘OK, Clyde’s not laughing, he’s not giggling, he’s not himself.’”

Edwards-Helaire was involved in a self-defense shooting during his time at LSU when he and another teammate were almost robbed when trying to sell an electronic item.

“I would say that’s probably where a majority of things stem from,” Edwards-Helaire explained. “I wouldn’t necessarily say everything stemmed from that. I have best friends that passed away at young ages from gun violence and just not being in the right places at the right time and just knowing that I have people that are close to me or around me who … could be in the same spots that I am.”

Edwards-Helaire revealed publicly for the first time that he was dealing with the illness and said that it’s a daily battle to get over it.

“My first couple of years, you just try to block everything out and it’s like, ‘Oh, at some point I’m going to get over it,‘” he said. “And you start to realize that that just doesn’t happen. You get older and you realize, ‘Hey, no matter the age, no matter the person, no matter the situation, everyone needs help at some point.’ It takes courage to talk about it and having PTSD and dealing with it once people kind of bring it up, it is not something that I’d always want to talk about. I never really know how my body will react or my mind, it is just something that I can’t really pinpoint or know exactly what’s going to happen. I feel like talking is a big thing, but it is just getting over that hump personally, being able to know that honestly, just everybody goes through things good [and] bad … It’s a steppingstone. I’m just 25 years old and trying to live the rest of my life healthy.”

Chiefs

Chiefs fifth-round C Hunter Nourzad gave his initial thoughts on the team’s offensive line unit and cited their collectiveness as why he feels they will succeed this season. 

“Yeah, I think – not even just the draft picks – the entire offensive line room that’s here is very, very cohesive, and we all have great relationships with each other,” Nourzad, via Ed Easton Jr. of the Chiefs Wire. “It’s not really one person leaning on another; it’s everybody leaning on each other, and I think the room and the culture that has been built here – in the offensive line room – is extremely good.”