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THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — At Los Angeles Rams practices through the middle of the season, running back Kyren Williams sat at the fringe of the fields on a small medical scooter with his ankle wrapped, and fixated. His wish to be back on the field, his little scooter pushed as far up against the grass as it would go, was tangible. It practically seeped out of his pores.
“Me being out there, it was me telling myself, ‘I’m still in it,’” Williams said. “I’m still on the team. This is still my team, I’m still a part of where we got to and a part of everything. It’s also me showing my guys, ‘I’m still with y’all.’ And I felt that.”
As soon as he could stand, Williams was back on the sideline. As soon as he could jog, that’s how he went out to practice each day to be as close to the action as possible, even though he was on injured reserve following a high ankle sprain in Week 6.
“That just shows how much he loves the game. A lot of people would just go home because they’re done with P-T (physical therapy) and all that stuff. You could just tell he wanted to get back in there,” left guard Steve Avila said.
“He’s not naïve to the fact too that his energy just being out there, it’s uplifting to people,” coach Sean McVay said. “It’s uplifting to his teammates, to me, to his coaches and so once he got back out there, I think there wasn’t anybody that was more excited for his return than he was.
“We were all excited, but he was champing at the bit.”
Kyren Williams is first in the NFL in yards rushing per game with 96.1 in the 11 games he’s played this season. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
As soon as Williams could run, he ripped out 143 rushing yards on just 16 carries, and added 62 receiving yards and two touchdown catches. That week — in the second game of the Rams’ sweep of the Arizona Cardinals — Williams. He was only getting (re)started.
Statistically, Williams changes the math for the 8-7 Rams, who have won five of their last six games. His simple numbers: Williams ranks No. 2 in the NFL behind MVP candidate Christian McCaffrey with 1,057 rushing yards, despite missing four games, and has nine rushing touchdowns (tied for No. 7). He also has three receiving touchdowns (192 receiving yards).
A deeper look reveals Williams’ impact on the offense. According to TruMedia, in the 11 games Williams has been active for the Rams this season they have averaged 27.3 points per game (No. 6), have an EPA/rush of 0.06 (No. 3) and an EPA/play of 0.12 (No. 3).
In games Williams has not played (including a bleak Week 9 loss to Green Bay in which quarterback Matthew Stafford was also out with a sprained thumb), the Rams averaged only 14.3 points per game (No. 30). Their EPA/rush was – 0.17 (No. 23) and their EPA/play was – 0.15 (No. 27).
When Williams is on the field, the Rams have a No. 1-ranked 52 percent offensive success rate, which measures the percentage of plays in which an offense gains 50 percent or more of the needed yards on first or second down and records a first down on third or fourth down (in coaching terms, “staying ahead of the sticks”). When he was out this season, the Rams’ success rate dropped to 39.9 percent, which ranked No. 30.
“No doubt, we’re different when he plays,” McVay said. “I mean, you just look at it. I mean, now there’s enough inventory and the energy, the production, just the overall work ethic. I mean, there are so many guys on this team that you just say, man, they are exactly what we’re looking for in Rams. I love him.”
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Williams seems a perfect fit for the multiple (and now gap-dominant) run scheme installed by McVay and offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur in the spring. He helps keep their preferred 11 personnel pre-snap looks identical, run or pass, because he can be deployed as a receiver. Excellent and diverse blocking from the Rams’ receivers and linemen — their three starting receivers rank in the top 20 of Pro Football Focus’ run-blocking rankings — furthers Williams’ cause. Against the New Orleans Saints in Week 16, the Rams ran Williams out of the pistol, behind motion blocks, in duo and mid-zone concepts, on toss plays and even in some of their “throwback” wide zone McVay first brought to Los Angeles in 2017.
“He brings great energy to our offense, great energy to our team, and obviously a guy that can kind of do all of it — which is rare these days,” Stafford said.
Williams can’t explain how he runs, because in his mind he’s not just running.
“I really can’t, I just know that in my head I’m trying to set you up,” he said, “I’m a running back and you’re a linebacker, you’re supposed to tackle me but I don’t want you to tackle me. My whole objective is setting you up, and getting to where I need to get to because I know where my blocks are going. … When I run, it’s me painting my picture.”
There is joy in each step, but anger, too. Being referred to by pundits as a “third-down back” through the 2022 pre-draft process irked Williams to no end. An injury setback that cut short his rookie season did, too.
“That hurt me the most, I’m not a third-down back,” he said, quoting his internal dialogue from that time. “I can do a whole lot of things — you guys just don’t know. Give me the chance to show you. That’s all I’ve wanted in life, is a chance.”
Kyren Williams has six 100-yard rushing games this season, including last week against the Saints (104). (Gary A. Vasquez / USA Today)
Sometimes, Avila said, the linemen have to pull Williams away from opposing players after a run.
“It’s almost like pulling a little brother away (from a fight),” said Avila, laughing. “That’s how I feel about it. He’s awesome, man.”
Every time Williams gets the ball, it means something personal to him. It means proving his worth in his first year as an every-down starter, sure, and in the big picture it will mean taking care of his family, with whom he is very close. But it also means getting a chance to show his teammates how he can help them, whatever it takes. When he plays, he feels a connective line of energy moving back and forth between them and himself that is precious to him.
“I am gonna show you guys who I really am, I (want to be) the most loyal teammate you have. I will go to war for you,” he said. “Being able to put that energy out there — I don’t need it back, but I still feel it back because of the joy that we all have playing together.”
Caring this much means Williams used to be brutally hard on himself when he’d make mistakes.
“That’s one of the biggest things I had to learn, was that it’s OK to make a mistake,” he said. “There would be times where I’d just come in (the locker room) and beat myself up because I made a mistake, missed a read or a block. … I would get mad at myself, real-life mad self-talk. ‘Come on, man. … you’re so f—— stupid. Why did you do that?! Stop being so dumb! Now you’re never going to play because you showed them you’re not trustworthy!’ Like, that’s the stuff I was saying to myself.”
In a spring practice this year, McVay saw Williams hit himself hard on the helmet with both hands and overheard Williams muttering harsh words about himself, to himself.
“He’s like, ‘Don’t beat yourself up. Stop beating yourself up,’” Williams said. “He said, ‘Every play is its own entity. If you worry about the last play, then you’re not present or here on this play where I need you to be.’ Just hearing that, all right. I better change something.
“Learn from your mistakes. It’s OK to be mad, but learn from it and don’t beat yourself up. In life, too, when failure happens, don’t beat yourself up. Now, I run to it. If I fail, say less. I’m glad I failed because now I know how to get you back. Don’t show me that same look that I failed on, because if you do, it’s over with.”
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When Williams lost two fumbles against the Commanders in Week 15, McVay was the first to get to Williams as he ran to the sideline. McVay reminded Williams of his words in the spring, and let him know the ball would keep going to him.
Late in the fourth quarter of that game, the Rams held a suddenly too-shaky lead and needed to kill clock while forcing Washington coach Ron Rivera to burn all three of his remaining timeouts on the underside of the two-minute warning. McVay and Stafford turned to Williams, who turned to his offensive line.
“We needed a first down to secure the game,” Williams said. “We were talking back and forth as a team, and (center) Coleman (Shelton) goes, ‘It don’t matter! All we need is three first downs, and we win the game!’ I was like, ‘Coleman! All we need is one stab (a type of duo run).’ The next play was ‘stab,’ and we got the first down.”
In Week 16, a Thursday Night Football game just four days later, Williams’ 104 yards and a touchdown helped him cross the 1,000-yard rushing mark for the season with two games to play.
Just like they were when he was mired in the unglamorous days of his injury recovery midseason, when he tried to stay as close to his teammates as he could, Williams’ priorities were clear:
“I think it means more that I’m able to share it with my teammates,” he said. “Getting 1,000 yards, that was my goal. But I’m not satisfied, I want to go get a lot more. I just got to keep playing ball with my friends.”
(Top photo of Kyren Williams: Harry How / Getty Images)
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