![Los Angeles Rams Minicamp](https://lasports.today/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2154072628.0-1.jpg)
Cooper Kupp’s last 2 seasons haven’t gone nearly as well as the Rams WR’s 2021 OPOY campaign
The 2023 season saw a slight resurgence for receivers 30 years and older, as Mike Evans, 30, and Keenan Allen, 31, both had over 1,200 yards. Also, Stefon Diggs, 30, Davante Adams, 31, DeAndre Hopkins, 31, and Adam Thielen, 33, all had over 1,000 yards.
In seasons prior to 2023, that just flat out wasn’t happening, especially if you were older than 30. The last relevant receiver over 30 was Julian Edelman and he’s not exactly who you think of when you think of number ones.
The fact of the matter is that teams aren’t just weighing the value of their veteran receivers at 30 and 31 in a vacuum. They have to be compared to the 21 and 22-year-old receivers coming out of college who are faster and much, much cheaper than today’s players on second and third contracts. Case in point: Cooper Kupp compared to Puka Nacua.
This season, Kupp carries a cap hit of $29.8 million during his age-31 campaign. He has missed 13 games in the past two years and the Rams have to ask themselves, “Okay is he going to have a healthy season again in his future?” with far more seriousness than they did when Kupp got injured at 25. Is L.A. really expecting to pay Cooper Kupp after this season, when he’ll still cost $29.8 million but will be 32, or in 2026 when he costs $27.3 million and turns 33?
For that to happen, Kupp has to be as undeniable this year as he was in 2021, when he won Offensive Player of the Year. Remarkably, 2021 is also the only season of Kupp’s career when he was named to the Pro Bowl despite being one of the NFL’s top receivers for the past seven years.
When the Rams do have to part with Kupp, whether that’s his decision or the team’s, they have a 23-year-old on the roster with three years left on a rookie deal that will pay him a cap hit under $1 million next season and just north of $1 million in 2025. Nacua just did his best “2021 Kupp impression” as a rookie, catching 105 passes for 1,486 yards and six touchdowns in part because Kupp wasn’t his complete self.
Will Cooper Kupp ever be “himself” again?
In this week’s Reverse Q&A on the Rams’ “greatest weaknesses”, there was a debate in the comments section over whether Kupp was still L.A.’s number one receiver:
In reply, Pmahc_AL mentioned the playoff game and asked for information regarding 31-year-old receivers coming back from back-to-back seasons with injuries.
First of all, in Cooper Kupp’s breakout 2021 season he caught 145 passes for 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns, earning Offensive Player of the Year honors, first-team All-Pro, and finished third in MVP voting. He did that in 17 games, of course, one of only two seasons in his career when Kupp played the full season.
Since then, Kupp has only played in 21 games over two seasons and he’s been targeted almost the same number of times as his 2021 season alone:
In the past two seasons, Cooper Kupp has been targeted 193 times (compared to 191 targets in 2021 alone), and he’s caught 134 passes for 1,549 yards and 11 touchdowns in 21 games.
That means that his catch percentage was 76% in 2021, but is 69% in the past two seasons.
His yards per target was 10.2 and his yards per catch was 13.4 in 2021, but those numbers are 8.0 and 11.6 respectively in the past two seasons combined.
And Kupp had 114.5 yards per game and 8.5 catches per game in 2021, however those numbers are 73.8 yards per game and 6.4 catches per game from 2022-2023. It’s worth noting that most of these numbers really came down in 2023, when Kupp caught only 62% of targets, averaged under 5 catches per game, and missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury.
There’s little doubt that Kupp’s season numbers were not only impacted by the injury, but also Puka’s presence as a more dominant weapon for Matthew Stafford to target in 2023. Were it not for Puka, Stafford would have surely forced more throws to Kupp and whether that’s a good thing or not is a matter of debate. You can deny statistics, you can deny film, you can’t deny the aging process.
As noted, Kupp is still trying to join a small group of receivers over the age of 30, as in 31 and above, who have behaved like receivers who will be valued over $20 million per season. And remember, Kupp’s salary average is $30 million.
Other than Keenan Allen in 2023, the last over-30 receivers who really put up those kind of statistics were Jordy Nelson in 2016 (97 catches, 1,257 yards, 14 TD) and Brandon Marshall in 2015 (109 catches, 1,502 yards, 14 TD).
It’s not that receivers today are less capable than receivers of the past—In Fact! the opposite is the case, receivers today are BETTER than receivers of the past—BUT what’s holding them back is the rising cost of receivers. It’s no longer how it was in the 2011-2012 era of Steve Smith, Reggie Wayne, Wes Welker, Andre Johnson, and Roddy White, when the difference in salary was not that great between a veteran and a rookie.
Cooper Kupp cost 30 TIMES as much as Puka Nacua. Is he 30 times better? No. Is he 30 times better than Tutu Atwell? Even that is debatable.
So any injury setback for a veteran receiver making $30 million per year is playing with fire for that player. Kupp hasn’t just had injuries in each of the past two seasons, but in almost every season of his career.
What does this all mean for Kupp and the Rams?
Well, it doesn’t mean that Cooper Kupp can’t be the team’s number one receiver in 2024. Of course he could be, as Ferragamo15 points out. However, to be paid $30 million in 2025, Kupp can’t just be a good player. He needs to be one of the five best receivers in the NFL and sometimes not even that will do it. And if you think that because Kupp is a special receiver that means he’ll have a more special 30s than his peers, just remember that DeAndre Hopkins is a special player; Julio Jones is a special player; Antonio Brown is a special player; even Larry Fitzgerald had to ramp down his impact and reform his game in order to last well into his 30s as a possession receiver. I don’t think even the Cardinals would pay $30 million per year for a possession receiver.
It’s not ME poking holes in a receivers game looking for excuses to part ways. It’s all 32 NFL teams that are doing that.
Kupp could be L.A.’s number one receiver, but the Rams would probably prefer it to be Puka.