LOS ANGELES — When the Rams traded up to draft Auburn running back Jarquez Hunter in the fourth round last month, he joined a crowded backfield, with four other running backs who saw playing time for the team last season.
The group includes Kyren Williams, a fifth-round pick in 2022 who has become the Rams’ clear starter at the position but is entering the final season of his rookie deal.
Rams coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead met with Williams’ agent at the NFL league meetings in early April about a possible extension. That morning, McVay said Williams “knows how important he is to us.”
“As far as just bridging that gap, we’ll see how far we have to go for that, but he is a very important part of what we want to be moving forward,” McVay said.
But adding Hunter — a year after drafting Blake Corum in the third round — doesn’t mean the Rams won’t attempt to re-sign Williams. Since 2017 — McVay’s second draft with the team — the Rams have taken a running back in every draft. Their eight-year streak is the longest active streak in the NFL and the longest streak by any team since Washington from 2011-20, according to ESPN Research. The Rams also have Ronnie Rivers and Cody Schrader on their roster, both undrafted free agents.
“We would definitely like to engineer a long-term partnership with Kyren,” Snead said at the NFL league meetings.
Last season, Williams stayed healthy for the entire season for the first time in his three-year career, a goal he set entering the 2024 campaign given his previous NFL injury history. In 16 regular-season games — the Rams rested him in the regular-season finale after clinching the NFC West — Williams ran for a career-high 1,299 yards and 14 touchdowns on 316 carries. He also added 34 catches for 182 yards and two touchdowns.
And perhaps most impressively, Williams accounted for 43% of the Rams’ touches during the 2024 season, which led the NFL, according to ESPN Research.
But while Williams was the Rams’ clear RB1 in 2024 and led a team that ranked 10th in rushing DVOA, he averaged 1.74 yards per attempt after first contact last season. According to ESPN Research, that ranked 32nd in the NFL among players with at least 100 carries. The NFL average among players with at least 100 carries was 1.89.
Corum, who had just 58 carries, averaged 1.4 yards per rush after first contact.
Adding Hunter, the Rams hope, will help bring that explosiveness to the field. Last season, Hunter averaged 4.03 yards per rush after contact, which was the best in the SEC among players with at least 100 rushes, according to ESPN Research.
“He can hit home runs for you too,” McVay said after the draft. “When you give him a vertical seam, he’s got the ability to run away from you. Some of the metrics that we have on him are really impressive.”
When asked how he’d describe his running style, Hunter said, “I feel like I’m a very north-to-south runner, a downhill runner. I can catch the ball out of the backfield. I can pass protect and I can run.”
Hunter, who said he spoke to the Rams three or four times during the predraft process, said he sees some similarities between his and Williams’ running styles, but said, “I feel like I’m more of a downhill runner.”
“When you put the film on [of Hunter], he lights up,” McVay said.
“He’s got the ability to go through you or to be able to run away from you,” McVay said. ” … When you talk to a lot of coaches in that league that you have tremendous respect for, the way that they spoke about Jarquez and going against him and what he meant to that football team and the competitiveness that he really displayed.
“Les [Snead] and his group had a real appreciation for him and then once the coaches laid eyes on him, there was a collective buy-in.”
