No shortcuts for LA Rams Cooper Kupp NFC Offensive Player of the Month

LA Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp is just doing what he’s done his entire career. He runs incredible crisp deceptive routes. He flashes enough speed in the process to create impressive separation. And when the ball arrives, he digs in and delivers some of the best YAC (yards after catch) in the NFL. But he would not be on the football field unless he can block. The LA Rams offense runs on a simple principle. No block? No rock.

Cooper Kupp can do it all, and he has. 2021 is the same old, same old.

Suddenly, the NFL is sitting up and taking notice. It could be for good reason. You see, after three games, Cooper Kupp leads the entire NFL in receiving yards (367) and receiving touchdowns (5). And he’s just getting started. It was one helluva September for the receiver out of Eastern Washington. If things hold on this current route, it could be one helluva 2021 NFL season.

Wide receivers earning the NFC Offensive Player of the Month is a big deal.  It’s happened three times before, and the company of that select group is noteworthy indeed: Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce, and Henry Ellard. A great accomplishment. An even better group of players to join.

The Rams didn’t switch up their head coach. It’s still head coach Sean McVay designing the offensive playbook and calling the plays. It’s not the offensive line. They are the same offensive linemen as 2020, and for the most part, as 2019.

The difference, if you need a cause and effect to be drawn up here, is the quarterback position. The Rams traded for QB Matthew Stafford, who has himself earned two of the first three NFC Offensive Player of the Week awards. It seems that the success of an NFL receiver is dependant upon the quality of the quarterback throwing to him. Funny how that goes.

Oh yeah? Prove it.

There is always the need for proof nowadays. Faith is simply not enough. Skepticism is everywhere, fueled by hasty decisions on partial information, media that is more about telling a compelling story than telling a factual truth, and a heartbreaking realization that humans make mistakes.  Over the course of covering the LA Rams, that tone has laid upon the enthusiasm for the LA Rams wide receivers like a wet blanket.

The LA Rams wide receivers are very good. They have been very good. They will be very good. The problem surfaced when the skeptics proclaimed “Prove it.” which has left me at a loss.  Of course, we can point to Kupp’s statistics, his NextGen statistics, but it falls upon deaf ears.  In 2017, he was the 24th ranked NFL receiver. In 2018, he was injured after just eight games. In 2019, he was the 12th ranked NFL receiver. In 2020, he fell to the 22nd ranked NFL receiver.

The reason? The LA Rams offense has been about balance. Until this point in time, if tight end Tyler Higbee had a good game, you could bet that former tight end Gerald Everett would follow suit with a good game of his own. Their combined total was impressive. But for the individual player? Many other players outperformed them.

If WR Cooper Kupp had a good game, Robert Woods would have a good game. Unlike most teams where one receiver would stand out, the Rams offense balances their production. In 2019, Kupp finished with 1,161 yards while Woods finished with 1,134 yards. In 2020, Kupp finished with 974 yards while Woods finished with 936 yards.

Somebody stop me

The Rams offense has been quite potent, but the team spreads the wealth so well that unless you follow the team religiously, those facts seem to be lost in the background. It’s been a key to the Rams’ success. The Rams offense is constructed so well that if a defense neutralizes one player, two other players step up to take his place.

But in the same breath, that same balance tends to allow for undervaluing the players in this team’s offense who make things go when the sledding gets tougher. Cooper Kupp has been one of the best-kept secrets amidst the wide receiver group. His name is not mentioned often in discussions about the game’s elite players. And yet, when you line up the production, there he is.

Okay, so a route runner who gets lots of yards after the catch. What about how well he runs with the ball? Does he drop like a sack of potatoes when a defensive back gets near him?

Uh… no.

The challenge in the past was the fact that the Rams offense shrank the routes and the field to help build confidence in the quarterback. The entire football field is back on the menu, and that gives Cooper Kupp all sorts of room to operate. The more space he has, the more dangerous he becomes. That is why we were confident in his ability in June 2021.

Cooper Kupp is simply one of the best receivers in the NFL, and now that he is paired with quarterback Matthew Stafford, he will continue to be capable of scoring instantly from anywhere on the football field. Eventually, the Rams offense will find balance again. Eventually, we will be having a similar conversation about Robert Woods. But that does not diminish the accomplishments of Kupp so far. It simply proves what we’ve known all along. Kupp and Woods are capable of becoming the next best WR duo in LA Rams history.