Cooper Kupp’s 2021 season will forever be remembered as one of the best ever by a wide receiver. He led the NFL with 145 catches, 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns, winning the triple crown as the most productive wideout in the league. Not only that, but he won Offensive Player of the Year and Super Bowl MVP, finishing third in the regular-season MVP voting, as well.
One of the most satisfying parts of his historic season, though, was beating the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC title game to punch the Rams’ ticket to the Super Bowl. Kupp was a guest on Julian Edelman’s podcast, “Games with Names”, and the two of them revisited that memorable game at SoFi Stadium – a narrow 20-17 victory over the “Whiners,” as Kupp calls them.
That’s right, Kupp dropped “Whiners” while talking about that game on Edelman’s show.
“The Los Angeles Rams trailed the San Francisco Whiners, 17-7, heading into the fourth quarter,” Kupp said in the show’s intro.
He threw another jab at the 49ers early in the episode, too.
“This is a good one, a great win against a terrible opponent. Love to be able to put one up – let’s be fair, they’ve had our number for a few years. We won the one that was meaningful, the one that we needed to win. We got it done, so.”
Super Bowl MVP @CooperKupp joins us in studio today for a great episode! We’re breaking down the 2021 NFC Championship between the @RamsNFL and @49ers
: https://t.co/PmjeKllsS0
: Episode drops on YouTube at 3:00pm EST. pic.twitter.com/Jnbd9BQXV2
— Games with Names (@gameswithnames) May 21, 2024
Beyond Kupp trolling the Rams’ biggest rival, the entire episode is fantastic. Kupp and Edelman talk about route-running, using leverage to get open against defensive backs and that time in 2018 that he spent an hour running curl routes to the point where his feet were bleeding because of it.
It all stemmed from Kupp wanting to get a different perspective from another coach than the ones he was accustomed to working with.
“I remember I’m with Curtis Conway, I show up on Friday, do some drills,” he said. “I want to get some perspective. … I got there with Curtis Conway and we ran a curl route for an hour straight. An hour straight of curl routes three days before training camp. My toes, I pulled my cleats off, toes were bloodied. But I wanted to go hear from someone different.”
Kupp and Edelman also talked about the 17-game schedule that the NFL has moved to, which led to a deeper conversation about players and owners compromising on adding games and lightening practice workloads.
Kupp, though, feels the players should be responsible for showing up to training camp ready to go, which isn’t always the case.
“There is a responsibility on players to show up ready to work and that’s where I think some of this stuff could happen where guys in the summer – I’m like, if you don’t want to be ready for OTAs, I’m fine with that. But the guys that leave all summer, don’t do anything all summer and then show up for training camp,” Kupp said. “That summer, you get five weeks from OTAs to camp. Take your break and then get ready to work because it’s in your best interest as a player to show up ready to go. Protect yourself, protect your teammates, put your best foot forward. If you don’t show up to training camp ready to go, I have a hard time when guys get hurt or guys do stuff or guys aren’t ready or guys are getting to by coaches about potentially getting released, it’s like, you were in the Caribbean for three weeks.”
Among the other topics Kupp and Edelman talked about were Sean McVay’s leadership, Matthew Stafford’s brilliance as a passer, Puka Nacua’s emergence in 2023, Aaron Donald’s workouts and of course, the NFC title game on Jan. 30, 2022.