Rams running back Blake Corum became a bona fide complement to Kyren Williams in 2025.
After having a limited role in his rookie year, Corum played 30.5% of the Rams' offensive snaps this season. With that increased usage came a boost in both production and efficiency, which did the same for Williams as he had fresher legs throughout games and later into the season.
The backfield duo spearheaded a running game that achieved the highest success rate on designed running back carries in the last decade (49.7%) including playoffs, according to Next Gen Stats.
Stats
All stats from the regular season and via Next Gen Stats (* = career-high, ^ = league-high).
Expected Points Added (EPA) per attempt: Derived from the Next Gen Stats Expected Points model, which measures how each play potentially affects the score of the game relative to the situation. EPA is the change in the expected points value from pre-play to post-play.
Success rate: Percentage of carries resulting in positive EPA. This can be thought of as plays that "keep the offense on schedule."
| Season | Attempts | Yards | Y/A | YAC/Att | 1st Downs | Success Rate | Explosive Rate | EPA/Att |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 58 | 207 | 3.6 | 2.7 | 12 | 39.7% | 6.9% | -0.18 |
| 2025 | 145* | 746* | 5.1* | 3.5* | 44* | 49.7%* | 15.9%* | 0.09^ |
Improvements: Explosiveness, consistency and vision
The second-year running back out of Michigan showed significant growth as early as training camp, where he broke long runs and made quick cuts all over the field at Loyola Marymount University. Everyone in attendance could tell this was a different player than the one who carried the ball just 58 times as a rookie.
Corum's explosive run rate increased by 9%, which helped raise the Rams' team-wide percentage to 11.2%, their highest since 2018. One in every 6.3 carries went for 10-plus yards for Corum his year, which ranked second among players with at least 100 carries.
That was an element that the Rams' offense missed last season, when they ranked second-to-last in explosive run rate at 8.2%. Corum's contributions, as well as the effect it had on Williams, added a breakaway element that transformed the Rams' run game in 2025.
Corum's signature jump cuts helped facilitate some of those explosives, but he was just as capable of running north and south. His 49.7% success rate ranked third among all qualified running backs in the regular season.
Pretty much every metric showed major improvement from Corum, and it showed up on the film as well. He was hitting holes that he didn't last season and finishing runs that he wouldn't have previously.
"First, the offensive line, they have to do a great job, and they do," Corum said. "But other than that, I'm reading where my blocks are gonna go, what type of defense they're in, and where it could possibly hit. And then I just go from there, I let natural instincts take over, let vision take over, and when I see something, I try to hit it as fast as possible because in the NFL, those gaps close really quick and you have to hit it."
