3 reasons why LA Rams WR Cooper Kupp will lead in receiving yards

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Those three words seem to creep into the discussion whenever the topic turns to how close the LA Rams had gotten to winning a Super Bowl during head coach Sean McVay’s tenure with the team. The Rams competed in 2018 at Super Bowl LIII without Cooper Kupp and fell to the New England Patriots by a disappointing score of 13-3. The Rams were a surprising Divisional Round competitor in the NFL Playoffs without Cooper Kupp in 2020 but lost in disappointing fashion to the Green Bay Packers by the score of 32-18.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

While I didn’t intend to point out the painful fact that the LA Rams missed the production of Cooper Kupp in their biggest games of the season twice in their short history under head coach Sean McVay, I do intend to point out the fact that Cooper Kupp is very productive in this offensive scheme.

Much like his teammate and friend Robert Woods, Kupp is a precise route runner who possesses an almost instinctive ability to hit his mark on the football field when the ball arrives. That is impossible to defend when he gets in the zone. While he has only boasted one 1k yard season, he has flirted with the landmark in all four seasons of his NFL career. His rookie season was limited by opportunity and two other seasons were hampered by injury.

At 6-foot-2 and 208-pounds, Kupp is an ideal size and weight to handle the physicality of starting in the NFL, at least in theory. So far, that hasn’t exactly translated into successive 16 game seasons.  However, if Cooper Kupp can remain healthy throughout the 2021 season, he has every chance in the world of leading the team in receiving yards.  In fact, here are three reasons why off the top of my head.

Crisp routes

Whenever Cooper Kupp is on the field, he delivers. His career completion rate is over 70 percent, but in 2020 he nearly reached the 75 percent mark. Historically, he has averaged over 14 yards per reception, but as the Rams shortened the field to aid a struggling Jared Goff in 2020, that average has fallen to 12.4 yards per reception. Still good, but he can do much better.

In fact, that is an area to expect improvement for the LA Rams offense in 2021. With the cannon-armed quarterback Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp is an obvious benefactor of longer routers. Much like his 2018 season, Kupp can settle in around the 14-16 yards per reception mark that creates a nightmare for defenses that are struggling to force the Rams to punt. How effective are the Rams at lengthening Kupp’s routes? Well, it’s safe to say that it’s already underway:

Kupp can be a matchup nightmare for defenses thanks to the creative options in the Rams offense. Ideally, he is most effective as a slot receiver. Now that the Rams have Robert Woods, DeSean Jackson, and significant praise for second-year wide receiver Van Jefferson, sliding Kupp into the slot should not be difficult. From that spot, he can bang out quick outs, slants or curls, run intermediate outs, digs, or comebacks,  and deep out-and-ups, post, go, or post-corner routes.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Kupp is the almost atomic clock precision he exhibits in his route running. Regardless of the jam or defensive back clogging his route, he invariably skirts past in a flash to be where he needs to be with plenty of separation when the football arrives. That will be very difficult to pass up for a new veteran quarterback like Stafford who will be eager to get into an early groove. And the more Stafford throws to Kupp, the more the receiving yards pile up.

More missed tackles

Once the ball is in a receiver’s hands, the average completion results in a fairly instant and automatic tackle. But in the case of Cooper Kupp, the fun is just beginning. Although he is 6-foot-2, Kupp has tremendous power in those long gating strides.  So much so that once he gets up a head of steam, he is one of the most difficult receivers to bring down.

That now you see him, now you don’t effect is great for the Rams, but equally disheartening for their opponents.

Los Angeles Rams

And it all blends together to give Cooper Kupp a tremendous 1,369 yards after the catch over his past three seasons. Of course, we can express that another way. More than half of Cooper Kupps receiving yards has been a result of yards gained after he has caught the ball. So what you ask?

If Kupp averaged seeing the football just five-six yards downfield off the hand of Jared Goff, what happens when that suddenly becomes 12-14 yards downfield from the hands of Matthew Stafford?  If the number of targets and completion rate remains the same, that will place Kupp in the 1,500 receiving yards category for 2021. Is that possible? Actually, it is.

Historically, Kupp has seen his route depth shrink over time. If that reverts back to his 2017-18 range, he can finally show up huge in the NFL receiver rankings.  Try as they might, the Rams were never able to unlock a consistent deep ball as long as Jared Goff was under center. I believe that will be dramatically improved with Matthew Stafford, and the receiver who will most likely benefit is not DeSean Jackson nor Tutu Atwell.  Cooper Kupp will dramatically lengthen his routes, and that will pile up the yardage pretty quickly.

Breakout year overdue

Ever since Cooper Kupp arrived at the LA Rams, he has carried this I-can-do-more aura about him. Although he has the ability to pivot on a blade of grass, he needs to have the ball in his vicinity when he makes his break. Meanwhile, although he can break tackles as well if not better than any other NFL receiver, he needs to catch the ball before any of that comes into play.

Matthew Stafford has been an incredibly successful (statistics-wise) quarterback but has done so out of the talent of his accurate and powerful throwing arm. If you look over his top receivers, they were not particularly gifted in terms of making the catch. While there was an occasional 70+ percent completion to a top receiver, Stafford historically threw to less-gifted players who topped out at a 60 percent completion rate.

Suddenly, Stafford arrives in the LA Rams and finds himself throwing to 71 percent career completion rate Kupp, and 63 percent completion rate Robert Woods, and 67 percent completion rate Tyler Higbee, and you have to wonder if Stafford himself is due for a career-high season simply due to the ability to throw to a receiving group with better historic completion rates?

Cooper Kupp career-high season?

If Stafford can get the ball there, and there is no reason to believe that he cannot, Cooper Kupp will be there to catch it and run with it through the attempts to tackle him by out-of-position defensive backs. And it’s a symbiotic relationship. As Cooper Kupp rockets towards a career-high season, he and other Rams receivers will bring Stafford along for the ride.

if you cheer for the LA Rams and like what their passing game has been so far, you have every reason to be optimistic over the 2021 NFL season. The Rams have a lot of new weapons to add to an arsenal that was already packed with underused weapons over the past two years.  The potential for Cooper Kupp in the 2021 Rams offense is truly stellar, and he is ripe for a career-high year. What will that ultimately look like?

No sense spoiling the surprise. Stay tuned…