I began last summer firmly on the Cooper Kupp bandwagon, just like pretty much everyone else. He was coming off an historic season, culminating in a Super Bowl title. Across 21 games (including the playoffs), he racked up a 178-2,425-22 receiving line, and in the regular season he completed the receiver triple crown, leading the in catches, receiving yards, and receiving scores. His age-28 campaign was, arguably, one of the greatest offensive performance by a non-quarterback in professional football history.
He was the near-universal WR1 entering last season. I wrote on July 8th that he was my WR2, because Justin Jefferson was my unquestioned WR1. Then as the summer went on, I dropped Kupp a few more spots.
My reasoning was partially flawed. I put weight in the arrival of Allen Robinson, who I believed could return to 2020 form after an injury-plagued (and QB-plagued) 2021. In addition to a green Justin Fields, Robinson's QBs had consisted of Chad Henne, Blake Bortles, Mitch Trubisky, Chase Daniel, Nick Foles, and Andy Dalton. Surely Robinson would benefit from having an above-average quarterback like Matthew Stafford throwing to him.
But I was also concerned about Kupp's advancing age (29) and extraordinary 2021 usage, in which he compiled 1,301 snaps. Last August I shared some very preliminary research on excessively high snaps for receivers (particularly older receivers), and their impact on players' durability the following year. I actually highlighted Kupp in that column.
The all-world wideout proved me wrong in the first nine contests, leading the league in fantasy points per game. Then a high-ankle sprain knocked him out for the year. It was his second season-ending injury in a four-year span.
Bad luck? Of course. I was more wrong about Kupp than right. Despite Robinson's struggles -- and for that matter, despite Stafford's and the entire offense's struggles -- Kupp was undoubtedly the team's MVP, and had he remained healthy, and had the Rams eked into the playoffs, he could have been a finalist for regular-season MVP.
And yet, I've remained stubbornly off the Kupp bandwagon this summer. Now 30 years old, and on a team that's probably going nowhere, Kupp has nowhere to go but down. As I've shared repeatedly, unless the Rams defy expectations and compete for a playoff spot, they'll have no incentive to play their expensive star receiver in meaningless late-season games. And if the Rams push for a more comprehensive rebuild, we could see Kupp on the move before the trade deadline, moving from a mostly one-dimensional receiving corps to (likely) a packed receiving corps that's one great WR away from serious Super Bowl contention.
Either way, Kupp's ADP (WR4 / overall 7) has seemed ridiculous. As subscribers know, he's been my WR10/11 for most of the summer, with an overall ranking around 20. A recent injury setback has pushed him to WR16 / overall 31 on my board. In other words, there's no reasonable chance that I'll land him, which is fine.
Stafford probably will never again play as well as he did in 2021, and the 30-year-old Kupp probably won't play better than he did last season. Both are declining talents. In an ideal world, Kupp could finish among the top-8 WRs, assuming he and Stafford make it through 15 games.
But the way I see it -- and have seen it for months -- Kupp remains painfully overvalued. It's not just his current injury woes. It's the perfect storm of an enormous talent whose body might be breaking down, whose QB's arm isn't what it once was, and whose team has huge decisions to make in the coming weeks about how best to compete in 2024 and 2025 with multiple lofty, long-term contracts hanging over them.
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