How does Blake Corum affect Kyren Williams’ value in fantasy football?

How much does the presence of Blake Corum affect Kyren Williams fantasy football value?

If Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams was on your fantasy football roster last season, there’s a pretty good chance he ended up winning your league for you. Williams finished the season as the RB7 in fantasy football in 2023 which is a very solid RB1. However, after returning from injury in Week 11, the Rams running back was RB4 and was a league winner during the fantasy football playoffs. Williams was the third most-rostered player and the most rostered running back and championship teams.

When it comes to running backs, especially in dynasty formats, the worst thing a team can do is add a player in the offseason that ends up competing for touches. That’s exactly what the Rams did in the draft when they selected Michigan running back Blake Corum in the third round with the 83rd overall pick. Given the positional value of running backs in the NFL, the third round may not be high, but it’s not as if the Rams waited until day three either.

Corum was the third running back off the board during the draft behind only Jonathan Brooks who went 46th overall and Trey Benson at 66th overall. After the way that Williams played last year, not many would have expected the Rams to be the team to take the third running back off of the board. However, that’s exact what happened.

The big question now becomes what exactly Williams’ usage looks like. Williams was one of five running backs last season with 10 or more touchdowns inside the 10-yard line. Outside of Christian McCaffrey and David Montgomery, Williams was arguably one of the best running backs in the red zone in 2023. Corum was almost automatic in the red zone last season for the Wolverines. In fact, he had 25 red zone rushing touchdowns just last season at Michigan.

Of course the Corum pick makes sense from an actual football perspective. Williams missed time last season and the offense took a huge dip without him. With Williams on the field, the Rams averaged 27.2 points per game last season. When Williams missed time, the offense averaged just 14.3 points per game. Having a player like Corum who brings a similar play style ensure that there isn’t that steep of a drop off in the case that Williams does miss time. With the lack of depth at the running back position on the roster, the Rams were forced to sign Darrell Henderson off of the street and rely on Royce Freeman.

It’s worth wondering however if Corum is more than just a handcuff for Williams. Does he relieve Williams in the red zone? Take away just five of Williams’ touchdowns last season and he drops from RB7 to RB14. That’s still a solid RB2, but it also becomes frustrating from a fantasy perspective because Williams isn’t going to come at a discounted price this season. Right now, his ADP is 15 or RB7.

If Corum cuts into Williams’ red zone touches, it’s gong to be hard for him to play up to that. Of course Williams did miss four games last season, but RB7 feels very much like his ceiling than something in between.

The positive here is that the Rams offense under Sean McVay has never really been a two running back offense. In 2017 and 2018, Todd Gurley took over 80 percent of the carries between him and the team’s RB2 at the time. Even in 2019 when Gurley was a shell of himself and the Rams drafted Henderson in the third round, he took 76.3 percent of the carries between the two players.

The closest the Rams got to an even split came to that was in 2020 and 2021. However, even in those years, once Cam Akers and Sony Michel took over, they dominated the touches in the ground game. Henderson went from having 10 or more touches in four out of five weeks to just two more times over the back half of the season in 2020.

Despite dominating the touches in the first half of the year in 2021 after Akers went down with a torn achilles, Henderson went from having 16 carries against the Green Bay Packers to 11 carries the rest of the season. It’s worth nothing that Henderson was dealing with injury as Sony Michel dominated the touches. Additionally, when Akers came back, the Rams did have a 17-13 carry split in his favor in the wild card round and they split 13-10 in the NFC Championship game. However, in the NFC Divisional round and Super Bowl, Akers dominated the touches 24-1 and 13-2.

There have been cases in the McVay era where the Rams have been able to get two running backs going. The most obvious example was when CJ Anderson and Gurley combined for 39 carries for 238 yards against the Dallas Cowboys in the 2018 NFC Divisional round. That may have been the vision with Gurley and Henderson, Henderson and Akers, or Akers and Williams. Unfortunately, for one reason or the other, it’s never come to fruition. The Rams offense has primarily been a one running back offense under McVay. Whether it’s been fit or just riding the hot hand, the Rams have struggled splitting carries between two players.

It’s become a two running back league, but the Rams have struggled implementing a two running back system. That was clearly part of the plan last year with Akers and Williams and it ended up with the former being traded. In Week 1, Akers had 22 carries to Williams’ 15. Akers was inactive the next two weeks and then moved to Minnesota. Over the rest of the season, Williams dominated the carries and between him and Freeman, took 74 percent of the touches.

This isn’t a David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs situation and both players bring different skillsets. Montgomery as the bigger back makes more sense in short yardage and red zone situations. When it comes to Williams and Corum, they both bring a similar skillset. That was something that drew the Rams to Corum. As McVay said after day two of the draft,

“For me, one of the things that jumped off is there’s a lot of traits that reminded me of Kyren Williams. Obviously I love Kyren and he’s been so important and just the human being, but then also when you just look at the way he works at it, the production and the things that he was able to bring to our offense last year and even really some of the things that he worked through his rookie year. I think there’s a lot of similarities.”

Only time will tell what exactly the duo of Kyren Williams and Blake Corum will look like. Will the Rams running back room be primarily Williams with Ronnie Rivers sprinkled in with Corum as purely a Williams replacement in case of injury? On the other hand, will it be Williams between the 20s and Corum taking over in the red zone and short-yardage situations?

Going off of past seasons with McVay as the primary play-caller, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Williams get at least 70 percent of the carries in comparison to whoever is the RB2. While the Rams did draft Corum in the third round with one of their top-100 picks, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him not get used early. McVay values running backs who are valuable in pass protection. Corum is a willing pass protector, but he’ll need to improve his technique here if he’s going to see the field consistently as a rookie. That’s a big reason why Evans didn’t see the field often last year.

At the end of the day, Williams just had arguably the most successful season for a Rams running back since Todd Gurley. He proved to be a perfect fit in the new gap/power run scheme with duo concepts that the Rams implemented last season. He’s still going to see a bulk of the carries. His production might come down a little bit, but that was also possibly going to happen anyway as a regression to the mean took place. Of course, the Rams also upgraded the interior of their offensive line this season by signing Jonah Williams and bringing back Kevin Dotson which may only have a positive effect on the Los Angeles run game.

Corum may steal some carries in the red zone as handcuff running backs tend to do and he may get more carries than the 77 that Royce Freeman received last season. Still, the Rams have built their running game around their new gap scheme and Williams proved to be a perfect fit. We’ll have to wait and see how the exact carries unfold, but Kyren Williams should remain the focal point of the Rams run game.