The Los Angeles Rams fell to 2-4 on Sunday when Chad Ryland’s 43-yard field goal came as time expired, giving the Arizona Cardinals an 18-16 win at SoFi Stadium. Sean McVay blamed self-inflicted mistakes for the loss as criticism mounted over the direction this team is heading in.
But the postgame line that took off online came from running back Kyren Williams, who said he couldn’t tell why the offense’s energy ebbed and flowed from drive to drive: “probably because I’m not out there.”
What Rams Star Kyren Williams Said After the Loss to Arizona
ESPN’s Sarah Barshop, who covers the Rams, posted the exchange.
Asked next whether he should be on the field more, Williams said that wasn’t his call to make. “It’s not on me, but I just think no matter what, we got to continue to have the energy,” he said, according to ESPN.
The numbers cut both ways. Williams ran 10 times for 50 yards.
Blake Corum, the 2024 third-round pick who has shared the backfield with him all season, carried nine times for 42 yards and caught a 15-yard touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford. Those 10 carries were Williams’ fewest of the season, down from 16 in each of his previous two games, though he still leads Corum 80 to 47 in carries through Week 6.
There wasn’t much work to go around for anyone. The Rams ran the ball just 20 times as a team, ran 56 plays to Arizona’s 70, and had the ball for 25:08 to the Cardinals’ 34:52. Their only third-quarter possession ended on a failed fourth-and-1 at the Arizona 27.
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Williams has produced when he gets the ball. Through Week 6, he’s averaging 4.9 yards per carry, eighth of 43 qualified rushers, and PFN’s NFL RB Impact Grade has him at 81.6, 7th of 46 graded running backs.
Still, splitting the carries has been the plan. In late September, after Williams and Corum carried 23 and 22 times over the first two weeks, McVay confirmed he expected the pair to split carries for the rest of the season.
“So we look at it like we got two great backs, and those guys being able to spell each other is when we’re at our best,” McVay said at the time.
On Sunday, McVay’s focus was on execution. “We won’t win a game unless we figure out how not to beat ourselves,” he said to open his news conference, and he later added that finding better answers starts with him.
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Once Williams’ quote spread on social media, one fan took it as proof of something much bigger: “Wow McVay actually lost the locker room.”
Jackson Durham, host of Chat Sports’ “Rams Report”, didn’t go that far but still saw trouble. He called quotes like this one “a very bad sign” and agreed that Williams should have gotten more work.
Sleeper’s NFL account had a simple verdict on the Rams running back’s statement, writing that “he might have a point.”
PFN’s X account’s one-word reaction conveyed its message. “Yikes,” it posted.
Not everyone heard a complaint. The Downtown Rams co-host posted the full interview and argued Williams was speaking “in a literal sense of why he didn’t know why some of those drives stalled out.” She described the full interview as mostly positive.
The backdrop only raises the volume. The Cardinals closed as 13.5-point underdogs, making Sunday the season’s biggest upset by point spread, and the Rams are only the fifth team in the last 50 seasons to enter a season as the outright Super Bowl favorite and lose at least four of their first six games.
None of the previous four reached a conference championship game.
The open question is whether McVay sticks with the rotation when the Rams visit the Las Vegas Raiders on October 25, or leans harder on Williams.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.