Kyren Williams made a lot of Fantasy Football managers happy in Week 17 when he plunged forward for three touchdowns en route to helping those managers win their Championship games, but before the first game of Week 17 kicked off, he was sitting on the waiver wire in the majority of leagues. Williams entered the 2023 season as the No. 2 running back on the Los Angeles Rams' depth chart behind Cam Akers. After a strong stretch run during the 2022 season, the expectation was for Akers to take over as the lead back -- this is something he earned earlier in his career with the Rams for brief stretches that were ultimately derailed by injuries. However, Williams took seize of the job in Week 1, the Rams ultimately traded Akers to the Vikings and the rest -- as they say -- is history.
Last week, I took things a step bolder when I said that Kyren Williams might go down as both one of the best waiver-wire pickups in Fantasy Football in the last decade and also possibly not even the best on his team. After his three-touchdown performance in the Fantasy championships in Week 17, he might have leap-frogged fellow Ram Puka Nacua and earned his spot as the most impactful waiver-wire add we've seen in a long time. Maybe ever.
Williams dropped 30.1 PPR points on the Giants Sunday, and he enters Week 18 as one of just two running backs averaging 20-plus PPR points; add in wide receivers, and only two other non-QBs have been better than him on a per-game basis this season. With the Rams left with little to play for in Week 18 after locking up a playoff spot, it's an open question whether Williams will do much to add to his totals this week, but he's already cemented his place as one of the most valuable players in Fantasy I can remember, scoring at least 14 PPR points in 10 of his 12 games, including six straight after coming back from a high-ankle sprain in Week 12.
How we handle Williams in 2024 is going to be one of the most fascinating questions Fantasy analysts and players have to figure out in the coming offseason, because he's got a pretty unique profile. Remember, Williams was a fifth-round pick who was mostly a non-factor as a rookie, despite plenty of need on the Rams part. He has dealt with multiple high-ankle sprains since entering the NFL and wasn't viewed as a great prospect, so this could very easily go the way of Dameon Pierce -- remember when it was controversial to say we should fade him?
While Williams was the league-winning waiver wire pick up of 2023 and possibly ever, his draft stock heading into the 2024 season will be hotly contested in the Fantasy Football space and I'm excited to watch that debate unfold.
