LAS VEGAS -- Los Angeles Rams running back Blake Corum hesitated just a moment before he cut on a stiff right ankle. Then he hit the turbo booster like a man on a mission, or at least one who spent so many pitch-dark early mornings this summer dreaming of a game like this.
He zipped through a hole on the left side of the line, rode the hip of his lineman up past a block from Konata Mumpfield, then became a sprinter in pursuit of a stripe marking the end zone, and so he raced past diving Las Vegas Raiders defenders for a 43-yard score. But a flag for a face mask wiped it off the board.
He later scored another touchdown by powering through from two yards out, only to see another flag for offensive holding.
By the time he got one more carry from inside the 5-yard line with just more than six minutes left, he was not only due but in a flow state. Corum took the ball and stopped again, freezing time and letting the chessboard rotate, before exploding off that right ankle to glide diagonally like a queen across the board. Touchdown. Checkmate.
Sunday's 35-21 win over the Raiders was the game that brought Corum's viral offseason workout videos to life. It was the dose of upside the Rams needed in a season that keeps ripping away their stars.
The Rams have found their X-Factor in Corum.
"I thought he saw the holes well. I thought he pressed the line of scrimmage," coach Sean McVay said of Corum, who finished with 93 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries. "… Every good offense here that I've been a part of, you've got to be able to do both. You have to have balance. You at least need the threat of where if they overcommit to something, then you've got to be able to make them pay. …"
"If we're able to do those types of things and have a little bit of run-pass balance, that's the identity that we're hunting up."
The Rams also found their style of play. They spent 72.3 percent of Sunday's game under center and ran play action on 56.7 percent of passing plays, both of which are the highest rates of any team in any game this season, according to SumerSports.
Los Angeles' 63.1 percent offensive success rate against the Raiders was the fourth-best mark of the McVay era and ranks in the 99th percentile of all NFL games since 2016, also according to SumerSports. It was the definition of the start-fast, complementary football approach that defined the Rams a year ago. That identity had eluded them in four straight games that came down to the final play, when they were gasping for air rather than sucking it straight out of an opponent's lungs.
It happened Sunday when the Rams gave season highs in carries to Kyren Williams (16) and Corum (17) and rushed for a season-high 199 yards.
This is not a coincidence. This is not a drill.
"It got called back, but I knew a longer run was coming, just the way it was five yards, five yards, 12 yards and then a long one," Corum said. "It felt good to be able to see the defense, feel the defense and get in that rhythm. … It was beautiful."
If the Rams are going to contend amid a rash of injuries, it has to look like this. They don't have enough other places to go with Davante Adams and Terrance Ferguson out. Sunday, Puka Nacua saw 10 of the 12 targets Matthew Stafford threw to wide receivers, and no pass catcher created a play of more than 15 yards.
Williams is vital to this offense as a leader, as a receiver, as a pass protector, as an energizer and as a workhorse back. He had a stellar game of his own, with 99 yards and a score on 16 carries. But while he's a machine in the run game, the highest gear of this offense was going to come with the unleashing of another back.
That's Corum, who spent his mornings this summer in Virginia, where he bought a house to raise a newborn daughter named Zara and, in his own words, "go back to my roots." He didn't accept last year's 746-yard, six-touchdown breakout second season as acceptable -- not with a family now counting on him. And not after the season ended with him bottled up in the playoffs, with only one carry exceeding 15 yards.
Drill by drill in a weight room, Corum worked with a trainer from his high school days on single-leg explosion -- a leg firing up against a pulled resistance band on a squat rack or leaping from one foot as high as he could stretch with two dumbbells in his hands. He did them over and over and over again until those twitches turned muscle into memory.
The vision was a day like Sunday in Las Vegas, where Corum hit 20.13 miles per hour on a 17-yard run using that same planned hesitation and stiff right ankle that turned him into the 43-yard runaway train.
"You saw the explosiveness," McVay said.
Added Williams: "He was explosive. He was able to make those great cuts, pressing the line of scrimmage and being able to run through tackles."
It's a mystery why the Rams went away from Corum in Weeks 3 through 5, when they went 1-2. He played fewer than 30 percent of the offensive snaps in each game and saw 16 total carries for 48 yards. He was bouncy, without rhythm or a plan of attack. He was frustrated -- with himself and the outcome in a season spiraling toward disappointment.
"I just control what I can, man," Corum said, looking back on those struggles with a smile.
Through six games, the Rams boasted the most pass attempts of any NFL team and a 2-4 record. It made the offense predictable and narrow, with Nacua missing two games amid a lack of explosiveness from everyone. Drives grew longer and more laborious, with offensive linemen playing backward and falling into untimely penalties. Turnovers piled up. The self-inflicted wounds had McVay fuming after games.
This week brought a reckoning. Nacua was fighting through a calf injury, Adams was headed to injured reserve and Ferguson was already there. Finding reliable, healthy pieces was difficult until the Rams finally looked Corum's way.
This shift alone is not enough for the Rams to become a Super Bowl team, but it doesn't need to be. Right now is about surviving a stretch until the bye week that features games against the Los Angeles Chargers, the Washington Commanders and the Arizona Cardinals. If the Rams can ride a simple plan that avoids momentary implosions and allows them to out-talent struggling teams, they have a chance to go 3-0 before the bye, which would buy time for Myles Garrett and Trent McDuffie to return to the defense, as well as Ferguson, and eventually Adams, to diversify the offense.
Corum is the runner built for volume, since Williams plays so much in pass protection and the receiving game. He can save Nacua from having to amass so many catches that he risks getting hurt again. He can provide the explosive plays missing without Ferguson. He can let Stafford work play action and audibles on favorable downs and distances. And he can allow a banged-up defense missing its stars to play downhill and on the attack with leads rather than deficits.
Corum didn't know when those 3:30 a.m. alarm clocks and hundreds of explosive reps in a gym would pay off, or if it would be needed so much on a team this talented. But it's time they all realize that moment is here.
Sunday showed a team finally slowing down and playing like the one it says it is.
"When you're able to run," Corum said, "that's how you break their will."
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
