HOUSTON — Cooper Kupp goes into the Rams’ game against the Houston Texans on Sunday looking to continue one of the hottest starts to a season by a pass receiver in modern NFL history.
That could present Coach Sean McVay with a high-class problem sooner or later, maybe even in this game, one the Rams should win big.
A coach wants his players to do great things. But he also wants to protect his stars from the risk of injury and overwork if a game gets one-sided. What does he do when a player is piling up unprecedented numbers but it’s best for the Rams that he comes out of the game?
“As far as those things go, it’s always about the team first,” McVay said Friday, while acknowledging “you want to see guys have success.”
Fortunately, Kupp is aware of but not obsessed with his early-season statistics.
“Things get back to you,” Kupp said of the numerical niceties. “That’s not the goal. It’s great that it has come along with us winning a lot of games. As long as we keep winning games, I’ll be very happy.”
Aiming to do that, the Rams (6-1) are 16-point favorites over the Texans (1-6).
The Texans have rookie Davis Mills at quarterback amid Deshaun Watson’s legal troubles, and just traded leading rusher Mark Ingram to the New Orleans Saints, drawing an outburst of anger from Houston wide receiver Brandin Cooks on Twitter.
But the Rams aren’t quite shipshape either. They agreed Friday to let DeSean Jackson seek a trade before Tuesday’s deadline after the wide receiver caught only eight passes in the first seven games, one for a 75-yard touchdown. They’ll have rookie Ernest Jones at inside linebacker after trading Kenny Young to the Denver Broncos on Monday to open salary cap space. They’ll be missing at least two starters, with left tackle Andrew Whitworth (knee) and defensive nose tackle Sebastian Joseph-Day (pectoral strain) declared out.
Against those uncertainties, Kupp looks like the surest of sure things.
Kupp led the Rams in receptions and receiving yards by narrow margins over fellow wide receiver Robert Woods in 2019 and 2020 but has taken it to a new level in the first seven games of this season.
Kupp leads the NFL in catches (56), receiving yards (809) and receiving touchdowns (nine). To put that in perspective:
• He’s the first receiver in the Super Bowl era with 800-plus yards and nine-plus touchdowns in his team’s first seven games.
• If he catches passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns against the Texans, he’ll be the fourth player in league history to do that in three consecutive games.
• Two touchdowns would make him the second receiver with multiple TDs in five of a season’s first eight games, the first being Don Hutson in 1942.
• His 607 yards on plays where he lined up in the slot are 223 more than the second-best receiver in that alignment, Christian Kirk of the Arizona Cardinals, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.
• If he kept up his 115.6-yards-per-game pace, he would have 1,965 in the 17-game season and beat Calvin Johnson’s record of 1,964 in a 16-game season for the 2012 Detroit Lions, with Matthew Stafford at quarterback.
Kupp jelled well with Jared Goff, but his teamwork with Stafford this season is one reason for his fast start.
“He’s connected with this quarterback, and those guys are taking us as an offense to kind of a different place,” Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell said, noting how Kupp watches tape with Stafford to better understand what the quarterback sees.
Talking about his season, Kupp sounds as interested in his much-praised blocking as he is about his receiving stats.
“I think I’m doing a better job of being a better part of different parts of the offense, whether that’s run blocking or pass blocking, going down the field or catching underneath stuff,” he said. “All the different parts of this game, I feel like I’ve improved since I was a rookie, and that’s what I’m excited about.”
Kupp’s all-around game is what impresses Texans coach David Culley.
“He’s having the kind of year now that guys dream of having,” Culley told L.A. writers. “I’m not surprised, because he is a very skilled player. When I say that, I’m saying this guy just knows how to play. He is a very good football player that happens to play wide receiver.
“Nobody’s been able to contain him to this point.”
What could stop him – from record numbers, at least – is a Rams blowout that sends Kupp and other starters to the sidelines early.
McVay said he usually doesn’t know his players’ statistics during games. The one time he faced a dilemma over whether to let a player chase numbers came before the final game of the 2017 season. Todd Gurley was in the lead for the NFL rushing title, but the Rams had already clinched the division title, so Gurley was rested; Kareem Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs played that week and beat him by 22 yards.
“Those are the things that are hard, because the most important thing for our team was to have Todd healthy and ready to go for the first round of the playoffs,” McVay said this week.
If the circumstances were the same and Kupp was going for a record in the final regular-season game on Jan. 9 against the San Francisco 49ers, what would McVay do, and what would Kupp want him to do?
It would be a good problem to face.