Cooper Kupp finishing with zero receptions in Week 10 unacceptable for Rams

Week 10 was brutal for Cooper Kupp and the Los Angeles Rams after falling 17-12 to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

With Brandin Cooks still sidelined after suffering a concussion two weeks ago in London, the Los Angeles Rams expected to see players like Cooper Kupp and Josh Reynolds step up in the receiver’s absence.

While Reynolds certainly did his best during the 17-12 loss to the Steelers after hauling in three catches for 49 yards, Kupp’s performance was somewhat of a surprise.

Over the years, Kupp has benefitted from being the No. 3 wideout in the passing game for the Rams, especially when defenders pay extra attention to some of his teammates.

But with Kupp technically being the No. 2 wideout with Cooks out in Week 10, the Eastern Washington product failed to record a single catch against Pittsburgh, despite being targeted four times.

From time to time, players are going to have an off game in sports, but when seeing how reliable Kupp has been all season for Los Angeles, this performance in Pittsburgh came as somewhat of a surprise.

Sure, the argument can be made that Kupp doesn’t deserve all of the blame since the offensive line didn’t exactly do the best job in protecting Jared Goff, but also one would think the wideout would still have found a way to get the football in his hands.

Just two weeks ago in London against the Cincinnati Bengals, Kupp displayed a career game after catching seven passes for 220 yards to go along with a touchdown, making plenty of fantasy football owners across the country quite happy.

One can only imagine how fantasy football owners were feeling after Kupp dropped a goose egg on Sunday, and it honestly couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Rams when it comes to the NFC playoff picture.

Not only has Los Angeles been at a disadvantage in the NFC West standings trailing both the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks, but the Rams wouldn’t even be in the playoffs as a Wild Card team if the season were to end today.

Making the playoffs are looking more like a long shot by the week, and it’s going to be even more difficult to try pulling off if guys like Kupp put up games like Sunday.

Once again, Kupp isn’t fully to blame for some of his struggles from Week 10 since plenty of other frustrating factors outside of the wideout’s control came into play, but it’s still difficult to process.

Hopefully with the Chicago Bears coming to town this weekend, Kupp and the rest of his teammates figure out a way to get the offense back on track, or the Rams could be watching the playoffs from home come January.