{"id":239294,"date":"2025-07-10T13:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=239294"},"modified":"2025-07-10T00:34:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T04:34:17","slug":"rams-kyren-williams-contract-woes-could-lead-to-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2025\/07\/10\/rams-kyren-williams-contract-woes-could-lead-to-departure\/","title":{"rendered":"Rams, Kyren Williams Contract Woes Could Lead to Departure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams is looking for a new contract as he enters the final year of his rookie deal, and the organization wants to extend him. Entering the league as a humble fifth-round pick, the Notre Dame product overcame an unremarkable rookie season to post consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his strong play, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6475014\/2025\/07\/08\/tua-tagovailoa-micah-parsons-nfl-contracts\/?source=user_shared_article\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jourdan Rodrigue of\u00a0<\/a><em><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6475014\/2025\/07\/08\/tua-tagovailoa-micah-parsons-nfl-contracts\/?source=user_shared_article\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Athletic<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>reports that the Los Angeles Rams will not reset the market with Kyren Williams next contract. While they are interested in giving him a new deal, they won&#8217;t exceed the $15 million per year threshold.<\/p>\n<p>Quite frankly, it&#8217;s easy to see why they won&#8217;t do this. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2020\/03\/19\/todd-gurley-released-by-los-angeles-rams\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles famously signed Todd Gurley<\/a> to a massive extension in 2018 and watched as injuries ended his career in short order. Williams isn&#8217;t nearly as good as Gurley at the peak of his career, and a similar fate could befall such an injury-plagued position. Kyren Williams will likely remain a Ram for the 2025 season, but one of the following teams could sign him to a massive contract at this point next year.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_239295\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-239295\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-239295\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/07\/Kyren-Williams-Rams-Contract-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Kyren Williams Rams Contract\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/07\/Kyren-Williams-Rams-Contract-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/07\/Kyren-Williams-Rams-Contract-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/07\/Kyren-Williams-Rams-Contract-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/07\/Kyren-Williams-Rams-Contract-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/07\/Kyren-Williams-Rams-Contract-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/07\/Kyren-Williams-Rams-Contract-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/07\/Kyren-Williams-Rams-Contract-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-239295\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">May 28, 2025; Woodland Hills, CA, USA; Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams (23) during organized team activities at Rams Practice Facility. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Rams Won&#8217;t Sign Kyren Williams To Market-Setting Contract<\/h2>\n<h3>2026 Team Fits<\/h3>\n<h4>Kansas City Chiefs<\/h4>\n<p>The Kansas City Chiefs will ride out the season with Isiah Pacheco as their starting running back. However, the former seventh-round pick is nothing special as a talent, and Andy Reid&#8217;s squad could look for an upgrade at this point next year. While <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2021\/04\/02\/trey-smith-nfl-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_self\">extending star guard Trey Smith<\/a> will be their top priority, the team could also hand out a new contract to Kyren Williams. Reid&#8217;s scheme is one of the best in the league for running backs, but he hasn&#8217;t had a player capable of making the most of these opportunities since Kareem Hunt in 2018.<\/p>\n<h4>Denver Broncos<\/h4>\n<p>The Denver Broncos will only sign Kyren Williams to a massive contract if <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2025\/06\/10\/j-k-dobbins-rj-harvey-fantasy-football-outlooks-after-broncos-signing\/\" target=\"_self\">RJ Harvey disappoints as a rookie<\/a>. The second-round pick has an impressive skillset, but nobody in the draft community thought he would be a second-round pick in such a loaded class. Perhaps Payton saw something the rest of the world didn&#8217;t, but if consensus is correct, this team could use a more traditional runner to pair with Harvey. If nothing else, Williams and Harvey could be a poor man&#8217;s version of the Mark Ingram-Alvin Kamara backfield Payton utilized with New Orleans.<\/p>\n<h4>New Orleans Saints<\/h4>\n<p>Speaking of the Saints, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2025\/06\/06\/kellen-moore-saints-chris-olave-trade-rumors\/\" target=\"_self\">first-year head coach Kellen Moore<\/a> has always utilized the running back position during his time as an offensive coordinator. While this team has more glaring holes on the roster, Alvin Kamara isn&#8217;t getting younger and Kendre Miller has not done anything to establish himself as a potential starter. While they might have to get creative to make a contract work, Kyren Williams could be the next featured back for this offense.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: Kirby Lee &#8211; Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Rams want to extend running back Kyren Williams, but they&#8217;ll only do it at the right price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":239296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,15,16,34],"tags":[7811,9060,7473,7659],"class_list":["post-239294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-broncos","category-chiefs","category-rams","tag-chiefs-featured","tag-kyren-williams","tag-los-angeles-rams-news","tag-saints-featured"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239297,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239294\/revisions\/239297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}