LA Rams Cooper Kupp was 2021 NFC OPOY and SB MVP. What’s next?

Kupp still has plenty of upside in this offense

The 2021 NFL season, in all honesty, was the culmination of a perfect storm for the offense. In essence, the LA Rams did not have a strong running game throughout most of the season. Making matters worse, with the exception of Cooper Kupp and Van Jefferson, the entire receiving group was a rather dynamic set of players.

The Rams began the season with Robert Woods and DeSean Jackson as the other two main receivers. By the time the season had reached Week 10, Stafford was throwing to Odell Beckham Jr. and Ben Skowronek. That made for a lot of challenges to the team’s offense and increased the focus and pressure upon Kupp to make the catches.

Fortunately, Kupp did exactly that.

The Ram’s offense gained nearly 4,900 yards through the air and just 1,683 yards on the ground. If the offense is able to sort out the challenges to the running game, will that automatically be offset by a decline in passing yardage? And perhaps even beyond that, will Cooper Kupp’s numbers suffer in 2022?

Plenty of room for another great season

Stafford’s 2021 performance under center for the LA Rams was pretty standard Stafford stuff. His 4,886 yards passing was only the third-highest total in his career, and he had thrown for 41 touchdowns before.  So whether or not the running attack improves, Stafford should be good for a similar type of season in 2022. Perhaps even better? After all, some INTs and incompletions seemed to occur as the offense attempted to synch in new receivers to the aerial assault.

If wide receiver Allen Robinson can tack on a 1200 yard season, and Van Jefferson holds his own at 800 yards, then Cooper Kupp will likely fall into the 1,500-1,600 yard range for 2022. That decline will not come from any decline in his production, but simply a drop in targets from 191 to a more manageable 150 this year. At 150 targets, his number would look like this:

• 150 targets
• 115 receptions
• 1600 yards
• 13 touchdowns

That is a positive development, as the Rams will want to have Kupp as fresh as possible for a run at Super Bowl LVII at the season’s end.