INGLEWOOD, Calif. – In 2023, Kyren Williams broke off what remains a career-long carry of 56 yards.
Two years later, the Rams running back has had moments this season where he's been close to breaking past the third level of a defense like he did in that 2023 game against the Cardinals, but his longest run of the season had been 20 yards going into Week 11 against the Seahawks.
That all changed by the end of the first quarter.
On Los Angeles' first drive in Sunday's 21-19 win over Seattle, he ripped off a 30-yard run which was his longest carry of the season. Then, with 1:41 left in the first quarter, he set a new season-best mark with a 34-yard gain.
On a day where he put his name in franchise record books, being able to display that explosiveness again perhaps meant more to him than those milestones.
"It felt really good," Williams said postgame. "Like I said, this was something we were working on this whole week, getting to that third level, finding that safety and making that safety miss. I gotta work on my over speed a little bit, but next time I'm gonna put that ball in that (end) zone. But it just feels good being able to put my foot in the ground, get vertical, find those yards, and then find that safety and make him miss, and just make those plays."
"I thought Kyren ran really well," head coach Sean McVay said postgame.
Both of those long runs put Los Angeles in the red zone; L.A.'s offense eventually capitalized on the second with a one-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Matthew Stafford to wide receiver Davante Adams which marked Adams' 1,000th career reception.
"It was great, it was awesome," Stafford said. "I mean, I feel like they've been close all year, and we've been really efficient around the ball. We were explosive tonight, which was really cool. Our guys did a nice job there, big plays for us early on. They were playing some defenses where it felt like if we got through, we could make some plays. And those guys did that."
If practice this week served as one source of confidence going into this game for Williams to break off a long run, the other came from watching film last night of the Seahawks' defense against the Cardinals' offense, and using his own custom approach to the way the Seahawks defense attacks outside zone runs.
"And I was like, 'Oh, if we call an outside zone on this play, it's going to hit,' and coach McVay, he did exactly that," Williams said. "We called 19, it went to the left side and I knew that I was going to press it and stretch it as much as I could, and then put my foot in the ground. It was kind of already a pre-determined read, don't tell coach G (running backs coach Ron Gould) that. But I kind of knew that once I started, once I got outside, and I was going to press the line, and everybody's going to fly over the top, and I was going to be able to put my foot in the ground. And just seeing that on film, and seeing kind of how they how they felt like they probably could have attacked it, I kind of use it in my own way."
