LA Rams fans are going to love that power running of Kyren Williams

Pre-season excitement?

After the 2021 NFL Draft, the LA Rams selected TE/WR Jacob Harris, a 6-foot-5 offensive weapon who was so athletically gifted that he defied categorization for the NFL. Was he a tight end? Was he a wide receiver?  He was 6-foot-5 in height. He was 211-pounds in weight. And he was 4.4-second 40-yard dash fast. He held so much promise and potential.

Ultimately, he ended up being both a tight end and a wide receiver. But all of that promise and potential? Harris arrived on the LA Rams roster oh-so-raw. While he has all of the makings of a special player, he didn’t deliver it in his rookie excitement before succumbing to a season-ending injury. Now? It’s up to newly arrived offensive coordinator Liam Coen to help unlock Harris’s potential.

Kyren Williams is worth some pre-season excitement, but for almost the opposite reason. He stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 194-pounds of pure muscle. He does not arrive on the magic carpet of gifted athleticism. Rather, he is a tough-nosed gritty football player who seems to have an instinctive feel for the game. He has the size and speed of Darrell Henderson blended with the ability to hit the crease between the tackles for big gains like Cam Akers.

Every so often, a player emerges in the NFL with nothing special about them on paper. But as soon as that football is snapped for the first time, something clicks. He becomes almost transformed into a new person. Former WR Chris Carter was one such player, who was affectionately described by ESPN as a player who ‘just catches touchdowns.’  LA Rams’ new RB Kyren Williams is one of those anomalies.

He is not a track star. In fact, when you put up his Relative Athletic Score, Williams does not appear to be a player worth anyone’s time.

But then, if you watch his games’ video footage, you see a player who has complete command of the football field, and a clear understanding of how to succeed. He is that guy who runs into a pile, appears to be stopped, and then squirts right on through to daylight out the other side of the pile.