Choosing Wisely: Selecting the Right Kupp

Bobby Koch

I’m here to help you choose the right path so you don’t end up like Donovan from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. Before the season began, I was very anti-Cooper Kupp. I never root for a player to fail, but I thought he was being overhyped due to his bowl performance. I even went on to call him Cooper “Overrated” Kupp on a few podcasts.

Don’t be like me.

As the season went on, I began to realize that I had been wrong. Kupp continually led rookie wide receivers in receiving yards until JuJu Smith-Schuster came on strong in the second half of the season. One of the tweets I sent about the rookie leaders was even shared and liked by Cooper’s grandma.

The rest of this article is dedicated to Carla Kupp. While I’m on the subject, I should mention that both Cooper’s grandfather (Jake) and father (Craig) were good enough to play football professionally as well. Maybe I should have done more research before throwing out negative terms.

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What really started my journey of writing this article, though, was this tweet where Cooper Kupp was clearly losing the popular vote to the 1.06 rookie pick:

If you’ve been reading my work before now, you know that I’m often wary of rookie picks. I know you can miss out on the upside that way, but I’ve been burned by selecting so many rookies that were supposed to be the ‘next big thing’. I tend to shy away from favoring rookie picks unless they’re among the first three selections. There’s obviously a balance to be had, but I have trouble understanding why anyone would sell Kupp for a pick that could turn out to be the next Mike Williams.

I can tell that most of you aren’t convinced yet, and that’s okay. If I thought it was going to be that easy, I wouldn’t bother writing this article in the first place.  Without further rambling, let’s get into the reasons why I believe Kupp is worth more than the 1.06.

Examining 2017

We’ll begin with his end of the season stat line. He put up 62 receptions, 869 receptions, and five touchdowns – on 94 targets. That was good enough to make him one of two rookie wide receivers to have 800 receiving yards or more in 2017.  The other was Schuster. That means Kupp had a better season than preseason darlings Corey Davis and Mike Williams.

We also need to remember that Kupp only played 15 of the 16 games this season. To put his season in historical context, since 1946 there have been 71 rookie wide receivers to put up 800-yard seasons. That may not seem like a lot, but it averages out to just slightly more than one per season. For more recent historical context in the past eight seasons, there have been 16 players since 2010 that have put 800 or more receiving yards only 15 games into their career. Here is the list:

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Stats from Pro Football Reference.

I recognize that Anthony Armstrong isn’t going to impress any of you. I also understand that Mike Williams (not to be confused with the rookie), Torrey Smith, Willie Snead, and Kelvin Benjamin don’t carry the same name recognition they once did. However, all of them had at least a few seasons of being at least flex-worthy if not stronger. You must admit though that the rest of this list looks very solid.

Still not convinced? What if I told those of you worried that Kupp is just another slot receiver that he was tied for third in red zone targets this season? Or among the top ten red zone targets, he was tied for fifth in catch percentage?

Alright, you’re probably sick of me listing his rookie accomplishments. They’re yesterday’s news, right? Still, I think it’s important to examine the past before we start to wonder what a player’s production might look like going forward.

The Future

There are probably those among you saying:

“So what if all this means he finished as the WR26 in .5 PPR formats as a 24-year-old rookie? he has nowhere to go but down. The Rams are going to re-sign Sammy Watkins and Robert Woods will become a true target hog.  There’s no way Kupp can get the volume going forward that he needs to be successful right?”

I need to stop you right there. Did you know that Kupp was the most targeted Rams receiver last season? No? How about that the Rams were 24th in the entire league in pass attempts?

The Rams would have to be dumb to throw the ball more with Todd Gurley a member of the team, right? They’re certainly not going to fade Gurley, but here’s another interesting tidbit for you: from week eight on, Jared Goff attempted 255 passes of his 477 total. That’s significant because that means 53% of his pass attempts occurred in the second half of the season.

It’s almost like as Goff started to show that he wasn’t the bust everyone thought he was the coaching staff trusted him to air it out a bit more. What a novel concept. This doesn’t mean I suddenly think the Rams will shift to passing the ball exclusively, but it’s easy to imagine a scenario where their 518 total pass attempts end up somewhere in the 530-540 range.

We should also touch on offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur leaving.  The early reports are Sean McVay will be calling plays instead of hiring a new offensive coordinator. We have three years of McVay as the offensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins to work with, and in those years, we see that no receiver was ever targeted more than 114 times. That’s bad news for those of you saying that Woods or Watkins could suddenly turn into target hogs.

I find the 2016 season particularly insightful for what McVay might do. He had to find a way to get the ball to Pierre Garcon, DeSean Jackson, and Jamison Crowder.  Garcon was targeted 114 times, Jackson 100, and Crowder 99.  It certainly feels like a similar model could be followed for Kupp, Woods, and Watkins. If I was a betting man, I’d bet on Kupp getting the most targets since Goff seems to trust him the most of the three.

Dynasty Implications

Stats are cool, but all we really care about fantasy implications, right? I think I’ve made a pretty strong case for a 24-year-old in a rising offense at this point. However, I was asked on Twitter what I value Kupp at if it’s not the 1.06. In the latest January ADP on Dynasty League Football, Kupp is currently going 57th overall. He’s going just behind Will Fuller and DeVante Parker.

I know there is a lot of love for Parker out there, but we are now three seasons into his career and he’s never had the year that Kupp just had. They’re also the same exact age. I imagine if I could offer up Parker for Kupp and any kind of additional value I’d jump at that chance.

I was also asked what Kupp’s upside is, and I’m going to borrow from Ryan McDowell on this one. Kupp has become the apple of Goff’s eye, and much like Ryan, I could see Kupp becoming the Julian Edelman to Goff’s Tom Brady. The major difference? Kupp is three inches taller than Edelman, which makes him much more of a red zone threat.

It’s always nice to go for the next big thing, but we as a community tend to overlook proven producers on the field while looking for the next shiny toy. I could be completely wrong about this, but short of getting a top-three pick in this draft, I’ll take my chances with the young player in a rising offense who has already proven himself at the NFL level. If you trade Kupp for the 1.06, as Anna Kendrick would say, you’re going to miss him when he’s gone.

If you’d like to tell me why I’m wrong or yell at me when DeVante Parker inevitably outproduces Cooper Kupp next season, you can find me on Twitter @RekedFantasy.

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