Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams is coming off consecutive 1,000-yard seasons as one of the best young players both on his team and in the NFL.

However, he remains on the fringes of the elite players at his position heading into his fourth NFL season. Williams also enters 2025 seeking a new contract, which he and the Rams have continued to discuss this offseason.

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But while he may not have produced at the same level as, say, San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, NFL Network’s Gregg Rosenthal said he’d take Williams over McCaffrey on a recent episode of NFL Daily.

“I want to have some love for the consistent player,” Rosenthal said of Williams. “He played the most snaps last season — this shocked me — of anyone in the league. … I’d actually would rather have him than McCaffrey because I’d just rather have a guy I’d know is going to be there even though that I know, at their peaks, McCaffrey is a better player.”

On its surface, this is a bold take. Only because 2024 was Williams’ first full season since he joined the Rams as a fifth-round rookie three years. Before this past year, Williams missed five games in 2023 and seven in 2022.

But even more so, Williams has never eclipsed 1,500 scrimmage yards. McCaffrey has done it four times in his eight years. However, McCaffrey has also missed more than 10 games in those four other seasons.

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Their age differences notwithstanding (Williams will be 25 this year and McCaffrey is 29), they also play the position differently. Williams has never caught more than 34 passes for more than 206 yards in a season, while McCaffrey is a dual-threat running back.

But that isn’t Rosenthal’s point. He values availability and durability over production. And because Williams was durable in 2024, the Rams haven’t needed to go to their Blake Corum. On top of that, as Rosenthal’s co-host, Nick Shook pointed out, “It’s obvious, painfully so, when he’s not on the field. They are so much worse as a running team without him when he’s not on the field.”

Does this make Williams more valuable than McCaffrey? We’ll see when and if the Rams open their checkbook to sign Williams to an extension.

This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: NFL Analyst says he’d take Kyren Williams over Christian McCaffrey