The florescent green cleats of Kyren Williams could be seen from space.
But it was the feet inside those shoes that set the tone Sunday in the Rams’ 19-9 victory over the New York Jets.
In this final stretch before the NFL playoffs, when the weather turns as bitter cold as it was at MetLife Stadium, it’s essential for teams to be able to run the football. Williams did that for the Rams, gaining 122 yards in 23 carries at a robust average of 5.3 yards a pop.
“It’s a security blanket,” Rams right tackle Rob Havenstein said. “There’s a ton of good rush fronts out there in the league, but to be able to run the ball and kind of dictate how we want to play offense because we can run the ball, that’s something that doesn’t just show up on game day. It’s something we work really hard on during the week.”
The numbers weren’t splashy. The highlights were sparse. But for the Rams to travel across the country for a 10 a.m. body-clock kickoff, with temperatures in the teens, this workmanlike win was a resounding statement: This team is capable of doing some damage in the playoffs.
Twenty-three carries is a full plate — the Rams only had a 50 offensive plays — but it was fewer than Williams had in his previous two games, when he had 29 and 29.
Read more: Tyler Higbee is hero in Rams’ win over Jets in first game back since January
“Not quite 29,” coach Sean McVay quipped, “so he’s fresh.”
Fresh as the opportunities unfurling before the team. With the Rams winning, and Arizona losing at Carolina, the once-surging Cardinals have been eliminated from the playoff picture. They play the Rams at SoFi Stadium on Saturday night, and figure to be less formidable with running back James Conner dealing with an apparent knee injury that sidelined him in the second half Sunday.
So the NFC West race comes down to the Rams and Seattle, who play in a season finale in Los Angeles. The Rams have the upper hand at this point, having already won at Seattle.
Meanwhile, the Jets are a mess, not news to the thousands of disgruntled fans streaming to the MetLife exits throughout the second half.
They have fired their coach and general manager, and seem to have handed the decision-making to quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who went for it on fourth down five times against the Rams.
According to ESPN, the Jets are the first team in 25 years to not punt in a game and still be held to fewer than 10 points.
What’s more, every one of their offensive linemen was flagged for a penalty, and there were six of those players since the Jets had to sub in a replacement for their injured left tackle. Dutifully, fill-in Max Mitchell checked the box with a false start just before the two-minute warning.
And to think the game began with such promise for the home team, the Jets assembling their first 99-yard scoring drive in eight years on their opening possession.
The Rams tightened the screws after that and surrendered only a field goal. Not to say it was a pristine defensive performance, though, as the tackling still needs to be better to increase the chance of survival in the postseason.
In many respects, it was a weird game that — thanks to all the running — glided by with the speed of time-lapse photography. The Rams were already in the fourth quarter while some teams were still waiting to start the second half.
The game went so quickly, in fact, that the NFL had to pump the brakes with commercials. The league doesn’t like to go commercial-kickoff-commercial, yet it had to do that three times in Rams-Jets in order to fill the three-hour window.
The Jets had the ball for the final 6 minutes, 22 seconds of the first half, then — because they received the kickoff to start the second half — held it for the first 10 minutes of the third quarter.
“I was like, ‘I haven’t played football in 30 minutes,’” Havenstein said. “This wasn’t the game to get tight out there. You ain’t gonna get warmed up any time.”
That was definitely the feeling on the visitors’ sideline.
“We were huddled up against that heater on the sideline, that’s all you could do,” Rams guard Kevin Dotson said. “We’re not used to it. It was like 12 degrees, 13, and it seemed to get even colder at the end. I’m from Louisiana, so I’m thin-skinned. That cold is different.
“As offensive linemen they tell you, ‘Don’t wear sleeves.’ I gotta wear sleeves. I won’t be the same person if I don’t wear sleeves. I put my sleeves on and just go hard enough where they can’t say, ‘Oh, he’s soft.’”
The strong performance on the ground was a testament not only to Williams but also to a stalwart Rams offensive line that only recently has come together as intended with the starters all getting healthy (enough) to operate in lockstep.
As for those bright green shoes Williams was wearing? They were the Nike Vapor Edge Kobe “Grinch” cleats, an homage to one of his all-time favorite athletes.
Grinch makes sense. For the Jets, he unquestionably ruined Christmas.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
