Fantasy Football: The Rams don’t lie – and that’s important when it comes to Blake Corum

The Los Angeles Rams, unlike almost every other NFL team, weren’t trying to hide essential fantasy intelligence from us last summer.

Throughout the 2023 offseason, the Rams kept telling us that Matthew Stafford was healthy and playing like the vintage version of himself (which turned out to be correct), that Puka Nacua was absolutely partying at camp (which carried over to the regular season in spectacular fashion) and that Kyren Williams was emerging and heading towards meaningful use (information that might have earned you a fantasy title if you were listening).

LA’s social media team existed primarily to produce excitement about Nacua – like thatIt is thatIt is that.

Basically, the Rams didn’t lie in the summer of 2023. If you just listened to what they screamed at us, you’d be a winner in fantasy football. Sean McVay’s team engaged in very little of the silly, performative secrecy that is so common in the NFL. It’s no exaggeration to say that the best fantasy draft preparation you could have done this past August was simply staying up to date with Rams news, straight from team sources.

Obviously, it’s crazy that the NFL is now a league in which franchises treat roster and injury information like nuclear launch codes, but that’s the current state of things. Last summer, the Rams proved to be an exception. Many good things were happening at the camp and they shared the details willingly.

With this fact in mind, we probably shouldn’t discount comments like these from McVay:

Under normal circumstances – as expressed by any other NFL coach – we would simply dismiss these comments as the standard post-OTAs issue. As a general rule, we expect glowing reports on all players in June. But when the Rams are exalting and re-exalting a newbie, it seems like actionable information.

Blake Corum was obviously one of the most productive and consistent running backs in college football last year, reaching the end zone 28 times, which is absurd. He has scored multiple touchdowns in each of his last Seven games while facing a number of the best defenses in the country, including Penn State, Ohio State, Iowa and Alabama.

Corum is fantastic in tight spaces near the goal line, but he is more than simply a short-yardage specialist. It can provide style points as needed:

This cut was cruel and cruel and, frankly, has no place in polite society.

During Corum’s pre-draft assessment, The Rams’ decision-makers were quite impressed with his receiving ability, also. He is clearly seen as someone who does everything for his new team.

Corum isn’t the only player on the roster, however.

Kyren Williams was minimally active during OTAs due to a foot problem that doesn’t seem so serious, but it is expected to be fully operational when the camp opens. He was a dominant force in Fantasy last season when we needed him most, averaging 118.3 yards from scrimmage per game and surrendering five touchdowns in Weeks 14-17. Williams also led the NFL in rushing yards per game last year (95.3) while averaging 5.0 YPC. No one currently on LA’s depth chart is going to easily surpass a healthy Williams.

It has become clear, however, that Corum is heading towards a non-trivial role. We tend to think that McVay’s offenses rely heavily on specific high-volume runners, but that hasn’t been an inviolable or set-in-stone law. In fact, his team ran a defense committee the year they won the Super Bowl. Let’s not assume a second defenseman can’t have value in LA

Corum is, at the very least, a premium RB replacement and has a real chance to achieve weekly fantasy relevance. Again, when this team tells us they like a player, we need to pay attention.