What’s going on with Cooper Kupp: has the Rams’ star wide receiver lost a step?

One of the enduring, most-frustrating, and winking mysteries of this 2024 NFC West Champions Los Angeles Rams team is the disappearance of Cooper Kupp from the team’s passing offense. What’s wrong with Cooper Kupp? is the common refrain. His last regulation contest with more than three targets was the Week 14 shootout at SoFi with the Buffalo Bills. He caught a touchdown (see Tom Brady’s “thighborg” call on FOX) then. But, since that game, he hasn’t seen more than three targets once, sat in Week 18 to rest up, and has collectively garnered only ten of Matthew Stafford’s targets over the last four games. The questions beat on: why has he been phased out of the post-snap offense? Should we expect this to continue? Are there any Cooper Kupp prop bets, or best Cooper Kupp-related bets for the divisional round?

The Rams have a difficult offseason ahead, and among the more difficult decisions they face is the reality of Cooper Kupp’s contract. He’s simply owed too much money—guaranteed or otherwise—in 2025 as compared to what we’ve seen re. his on-field performance, at least in terms of receiving production. We know he’s undeniably an asset to the Rams: a veteran, triple-crown- and Super-Bowl-winning receiver to mentor Puka Nacua, a fantastic blocker, and a top-tier offensive talent who’s willing to be of so much utility in pre-snap motion. But Ja’Marr Chase won the triple crown this year, and receivers only seem to be getting more coachable coming out of their college programs. The Rams have Jordan Whittington in the wings.

Kupp finished the game against the Minnesota Vikings in the Wild Card round with one catch on one target for 29 yards. For longest-reception bettors: rejoice. For anyone who followed along with my potential last-dance parlay that had Cooper Kupp clearing five receptions and fifty yards—many apologies.

But it’s high time to get answers, if only fractionally.

I wanted to evaluate Kupp simply within the context of these two questions:

• Has he lost a step because of all the lower-body injuries since 2021?
• Is his ability to accelerate at the release-point or break-point of a route significantly less effective than it was in 2021?

Basically: has Father Time caught up to Cooper Kupp such that Stafford needs to force the ball to Puka Nacua and Kyren Williams, simply because they can do more in space? Our sample size for this analysis will be small, but we’ll be looking at three plays in particular for our comparison. Onto the analysis.

Analysis: Cooper Kupp’s speed and acceleration ratings in 2021 playoffs

I’ve posted this analysis to a tweet thread on my handle @dansby_edits, so I’ll be embedding quite a few posts from there as we go through this.

Having said that, we’re going to be looking at two key plays on which Stafford targeted Kupp for completions from the Los Angeles Rams at Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Both happened during the Rams’ game-winning fourth-quarter drive. Kupp’s final line in that game was nine receptions on 11 targets for 183 yards and a touchdown—much more like what we’d expect from him in the playoffs as opposed to 1/29/0.

The first play we’ll look at for speed and acceleration is the 20-yard out route at 00:35 remaining in the fourth quarter, on which Kupp burned Sean Murphy-Bunting and caught this key intermediate pass to set up the next play …

Which is the second one we’ll be analyzing! The infamous 44-yard seam route that set up the game-winning field goal. Bucs safety Antoine Winfield picked up the over-the-top coverage on Kupp, there, and wasn’t able to keep up with him before Kupp caught the ball and went down.

Why these plays? It was clear McVay and Stafford had Kupp as the first/best read on these plays, and Stafford delivers the ball perfectly to him. Kupp also beats two 2021-playoff-caliber defensive backs—Winfield remains a stud, and Murphy-Bunting has had an up-and-down career—on two different route types.

Out route for 20 yards at Q4 00:35 – Speed and acceleration ratings

Cooper Kupp’s top speed on this route is 15.08 mph—not blazing by any means—and he hits that speed at this point in the route, shown in the picture below provided by NFL Next Gen Stats:

Note that this is 4.2 seconds after the snap, and that it’s just after his breakpoint on the route, where he left Murphy Bunting (23) in the dust while Van Jefferson (12) took a Bucs defender straight up the sideline to clear the runway for Kupp.

Here’s the view of where Kupp is in the route, and where the play is as a whole, from the sideline camera:

So, again, he’s at 15.08 mph right there, as the ball is about halfway to him, and he’s made eye-contact with it.

Same play, but we’re taking a look at acceleration scores now. I wanted to see both Cooper Kupp’s acceleration score was at his top speed, as well as how accelerated he is at the top/breakpoint of his route.

At the point picture above, when Kupp is at his top speed, his acceleration score is 1.17. This is likely because he’s slowing down to clock the ball in the air, gather it, etc. He’s decelerating to follow through with the catch.

His acceleration score at the top of the route, however (pictured below), is 4.16. The top of the route occurs just 0.4 seconds before Kupp hits his top speed.

Dots view:

Sideline view:

Kupp accelerated the most on this route at his breakpoint, which is what we’d expect from someone of his pedigree. An acceleration score of 4.16 is well above average for a receiver like Cooper Kupp, even in his prime, when his tools were the ones the Rams’ offensive scheme utilized the most. And, at 15.08 mph, it’s clear Kupp needed to focus more on the route’s break, here, than outrunning his man.

Yet, still: those are the numbers. This was the play. It was the second-most critical play in a 2021 divisional playoff. The most important play?

Seam route for 44 yards at Q4 00:27 – Speed and acceleration ratings

The infamous play that set up the game-winning field goal, and that yielded us the marble-mouthed postgame interview in which Cooper Kupp described his thought process on the defense before the ball was hiked, and did so in hilarious football engineering parlance.

On this play, Kupp’s top speed was a much higher 18.07 mph. Given the north-to-south nature of a seam, this makes sense. But, remember, we’re doing this in the context of Cooper Kupp in 2024. This was the most important play of his entire historic season—game literally on the line—and this was his top speed.

It occurred at the following point in the route. Dots:

Note, again that Kupp’s top speed here happened 4.8s after the ball was snapped. He hit his top speed 4.2s after the ball was snapped on the previous play.

Sideline view:

And now, once more, onto the acceleration scores. His acceleration at this top speed was 1.15, which, again, likely represents the throttling down involved necessary in gathering such a high-stakes pass.

Here’s where it gets juicy. Kupp’s highest acceleration score during this entire play was 4.61 (just around .5 more accelerated than the previous play), and take a look where it occurred.

Dots:

Kupp hits top acceleration 0.7s after Stafford snaps the ball. It’s an explosive release.

Here’s the sideline view:

Stat roundup for 2021

Here’s what I tweeted about these two plays:

so, on the two most important plays of the 2021 rams season, when stafford was targeting kupp, there was:

– no pre-snap motion for cooper kupp
– explosive release (seam 4.61)
– hard-accel break (out 3.36 at route top)
– top speed of 18.07 mph
– top accel of 4.61

onto 2024!

— Dan Johnson (@dansby_edits) January 16, 2025

Though, that’s incorrect—it was actually a 4.16 hard-accel break at the top of the out route at 00:35. My fault!

But this gives you a sense of Kupp’s ability to perform at the highest levels of speed, acceleration, and route-running on the two most crucial plays of his 2021 season to date, both of which saw him targeted.

Analyzying Cooper Kupp’s speed and acceleration in the Wild Card round vs. the Vikings in 2024

The seam route from the divisional game against the Bucs might be a better comp for the 29-yarder against the Vikings on Wild Card weekend. Both plays were much more north-to-south than the out route.

Also, you’ll recall I’ve been noting at what point after ball-snap Kupp hits his top speed. On both of the Bucs plays, Kupp didn’t hit his top speed until 4.0+ secs after ball’s snapped. Which means, at least in 2021, he could still hit his second gear. We’re looking to see if, in 2025, that’s a thing of the past. And we’ve got one play with which to do it.

I noted Stafford’s odd reaction to this (Puka also pointed at Cooper in a similarly emphatic, holy-crap! way) in this tweet:

cooper kupp had one catch in the game against the vikings. back shoulder seam/fade up the sideline from the slot for 29 yards.

stafford pointed to him after like it was the greatest thing 10’d ever done

the sports gaming world grumbled. this f*ckin guy. goose egg kupp. etc.

— Dan Johnson (@dansby_edits) January 16, 2025

Do we really expect so little of Cooper Kupp, now? Maybe.

Seam/fade route up the sideline for a 29-yard back shoulder catch at Q3 10:05 – Speed and acceleration ratings

Surprise!

Kupp’s fastest-clocked top speed of any of the three of these plays was on this one, at 19.35 mph. He hits it almost at the top of the route, when Stafford’s pass traveled over half the distance to good ol’ Coop. See below:

Dots:

And here’s your sideline view. He’s still about a half-step behind Shaquill Griffin (1), and accelerating to get to the point where he can start planting and pivoting for the back-shoulder play.

And, once more, let’s note again: this is 3.4s after Stafford snaps the ball. Kupp also ran in motion (dotted line) before the snap on this play, so he hit his second gear after being utilized for pre-snap reading.

Sideline cam:

Now, Kupp’s acceleration score at this top speed is consistent with his other acceleration/deceleration vectors at his top speeds on the other plays: 1.25.

We also see acceleration scores here that indicate Kupp still has a relatively-explosive release. His highest acceleration score on this entire play came 2.5s before the ball was snapped, when he just began his motion. Seen below:

That was good for an acceleration score of 3.94—right in the same ballpark as his highest acceleration ratings in the 2021 Divisional game.

His highest acceleration score after the snap came, once more, at the release point (0.9s after snap), and clocked in at 3.49. Not quite what we were seeing in 2021, but still enough to get him to the fastest top-end speed of any of these three plays.

so on that play we saw:

– pre-snap motion on which kupp hits top acceleration
– slightly-less explosive release than 2021 seam (3.49 vs. 4.16)
– highest top speed of all three plays, which kupp hit 3.4s after ball snap)
– still-elite body-adjustment savvy, hands, etc.

— Dan Johnson (@dansby_edits) January 16, 2025

What does this tell us?

Admittedly, this is a reductive way of looking at Cooper Kupp’s effectiveness as a pass-catcher these days. And it won’t ever give us the breadth of information we need to eclectically piece together an answer to his disappearance from this offense.

But part of me has genuinely wondered if the Rams have been hiding Cooper Kupp a bit, using him more in a utility role, either to let his injuries get healthy—and, most importantly, stay healthy—during the regular season, simply because they didn’t need him to win. It would sure be interesting if McVay and Mike LaFleur have been scheming their way to phasing Kupp out for long enough during the regular season just to throw opponents off.

Because, to answer my questions: Cooper Kupp still seems to have the speed-and-route-running ability, when needed, to be as effective an offensive weapon in these 2024 playoffs as 2021. It might not mean volume—though, I really feel like that’s coming—but it could mean yardage.

Can you bet on any Cooper Kupp props for the Divisional game vs. the Eagles?

Seeing as most bettors will probably slam the unders or stay away from Kupp altogether, there’s likely value in his current markets. I’ll be evaluating them as we get closer to game day and will write up my favorite one for him. Longest reception is almost too easy, so I’ll stay away from that, and likely hope his total yardage market drops a bit more.

Having said that, his props currently sit at 42.5 receiving yards, 4.5 receptions (for +120, which I don’t hate), and +200 to score a touchdown.