Joe Williams was once the running back Kyle Shanahan simply could not stop thinking about.

Now the former San Francisco 49ers draft pick is back in the news for very different reasons.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies say the 33-year-old ran from them through the streets of West Hollywood on Wednesday afternoon before he was finally caught and booked into jail on a list of charges.

According to the Sheriff’s Department, it began around 4 p.m. near La Brea and Fountain Avenues. Deputies pulled Williams over for possible speeding and sent him on his way with only a verbal warning.

Shortly afterward, they learned he had an outstanding felony warrant for receiving stolen property.

When they stopped him a second time, Williams allegedly got out of his car and ran instead of surrendering. The chase ended on Formosa Avenue near Romaine Street, where deputies took him into custody.

Williams was booked on suspicion of receiving stolen property, resisting or obstructing an officer, vandalism, trespassing, and violating the terms of his probation or supervised release.

He was being held on $50,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, November 2.

Authorities have not said what led to the original warrant, and these are only allegations. None of the charges have been proven in court.

The probation violation suggests this isn’t Williams’ first time dealing with the legal system since football.

Even so, few details about his life after leaving the league have been made public. Most fans who remember him remember the strange, winding path that brought him to the NFL in the first place.

Williams was one of college football’s most unusual stories. He transferred to Utah in 2015 after starting his career elsewhere, then walked away from the game early in the 2016 season, retiring.

A rash of injuries in the Utes’ backfield brought him back weeks later, and he came out of retirement with a run of huge performances that put him back on NFL radars.

He finished with 19 games over two seasons in Salt Lake City, and his elite straight-line speed made him one of the most debated running backs in the 2017 class.

He also ended up at the center of one of the most memorable draft-room storylines of the Shanahan and John Lynch era. Lynch was skeptical of Williams early on because he decided to quit midseason.

Shanahan, however, pushed hard for the back he thought fit his outside-zone system perfectly, saying the night before the pick, “I will be contemplating Joe Williams all night.” Shanahan won the argument, and San Francisco took Williams in the fourth round as part of the new regime’s very first draft class.

The payoff never came. Williams hurt his ankle and spent his entire rookie year on injured reserve.

The 49ers waived him on August 31, 2018, and he never played a regular-season snap for San Francisco or any other NFL team.

Eight years later, his name is surfacing again in a story that has nothing to do with football and everything to do with what comes next for a once-coveted talent whose career ended before it started.