"Here," he said, handing her a No. 34. "This is the one you want."

John Kasay jerseys weren't flying out the door Wednesday, four days after he missed a kick that would've rendered this week's game moot, thus assuring his teammates a bye in the playoffs and no travel between now and the Super Bowl.

DeAngelo Williams, on the other hand, is the hottest item on the team. There's even talk of an MVP award in his near future. All he wants for Christmas is some rest. Well, that and a few other things that cost a lot of money.

"Christmas is not really my favorite holiday," he said.

He ranks it about third. Williams, the team's new superstar at running back, is more of a Halloween guy.

Williams is being mentioned in sentences along with Jim Brown this week. They're the only men with more than five touchdown runs of more than 30 yards in a season. Williams is now fourth in the league in rushing and has set a team record for touchdowns in a season and needs 108 yards against New Orleans to break the record of 1,444 set in 2003 by Stephen Davis.

Humble and quite generous for a guy who rates Christmas only third in favorite holidays, he credits the offensive line, fullback Brad Hoover and offensive coordinator Jeff Davidson, who has put the entire playbook out there for everybody this year.

"The offensive line and Brad Hoover know where everybody's going to be, and I know where they're going to be," Williams said. "It puts us on the same page. We're all in sync. We're all moving on the same beat, the same heartbeat."

His teammates look at him differently now than they did a year ago, back when he didn't have the extra gear he seems to have now, back when he didn't know the entire playbook, back when he was just another draft pick for a team searching for a go-to back. How uncertain were the Panthers that Williams was their guy? They drafted a running back with the first pick in April.

Now that he's rendered rookie Jonathan Stewart moot in what was only a couple of weeks ago a ballyhooed tandem, his teammates are careful in their praise.

"He's playing about as good as I've ever seen a running back play," Jake Delhomme said. "He's playing unbelievable. I have to be careful. I don't want to say too much, but he's playing great. I mean, he's playing really good Football right now."

He doesn't want to say too much because it's a fine line between good and great, and it's a word thrown around haphazardly in the NFL anyway, but Williams really is playing well right now and going into Sunday's game against the Saints, he's become the No. 1 priority of opposing defenses.

Not Delhomme and not Steve Smith.

Much was made of the two running backs co-existing early in the season, and it wore on both Williams and Stewart. They bristled at the questions, particularly those about how they got along. Of all the things Williams accomplished this season, hammering out a friendship with the guy who was brought in to take his job has been right at the top. The two have become best friends.

Williams scored four touchdowns and ran for 108 yards Sunday night and became a national star in the loss to the Giants. This week, the third-year player from Memphis has been the face of the franchise. Sean Peyton, the coach of the Saints, said Wednesday he believed the emergence of Williams has made the Panthers one of the most dangerous offenses in the league.

"You can't get him off his feet," Peyton said. "He has unbelievable vision and, of course, great speed."

That speed was not apparent in the first two seasons. There were flashes, and there times when he showed brilliance. But not until he was faced with a challenge from the rookie Stewart did Williams show what he was capable of. From his first carry at training camp (off tackle for about 80 yards) he's proven he can flat fly.

If the Panthers get past New Orleans this weekend, he will become one of the most dangerous players in the NFL playoffs. In the gift shop Wednesday, his jersey was flying off the racks as players such as the star-crossed Kasay and the forlorn jerseys of past Panthers hung untouched.

Williams has become a star in a league already filled with them. He's a reluctant star, though, and a fairly new one at that, but he's the only one who's evoked the name of Jim Brown in recent years. His teammates have to be careful not to make him out to be more than he's comfortable with.

They genuinely like him, which is not all that common in the NFL.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin @news-record.com