Cooper Kupp had committed, in his own words, the “cardinal sin.” Never stretch the ball out on third down.
Some situations, though, require one to break the rules — and the Seattle Seahawks are happy to have had that player in that situation.
Kupp’s outstretched arms helped the Seahawks convert a crucial third-and-7 with just more than three minutes to go in the NFC Championship. Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams’ top-scoring offense wouldn’t get back on the field until the waning moments.
The Seahawks were heading to the Super Bowl.
“I mean, I’ve known that he was going to come in clutch,” Jaxon Smith-Njigba said of Kupp after the game. “Just the way he prepares, he’s ready for this moment. Play after play, he locked in on the run game and the pass game.
“For us to have a guy that we can count on like Coop, it just takes this team to another level.”
Kupp finished with four catches for 36 yards and a touchdown in the win. The box score doesn’t do him justice, though — three of his four catches were third-down conversions. His touchdown came on a third-and-3 and proved to be the game-winning touchdown.
He also drew a late pass interference to all but seal the win.
“How about that?” Mike Macdonald said. “Coop against his former team, NFC Championship, gets a touchdown. Some whispers before the game, like ‘How cool would it be if Coop scored a touchdown today?’ And he did. I mean, we love him. He’s the best.”
Kupp’s touchdown catch was, fittingly, his first in the postseason since Super Bowl 56 when he caught eight passes for 92 yards and two touchdowns with the game winner among them.
He won Super Bowl MVP and capped a historic season: 145 receptions for 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns, earning the NFL’s receiving Triple Crown.
And now he’s back on the grandest stage again, playing a much different — but still vitally important — role.
“For the story to be what it was, that it had to be through the Rams to be able to get where we wanted to go, in the NFC Championship, in that moment, yeah … the script writers did a great job on that one,” Kupp said last week.
Kupp’s departure from the Rams — the team with which he had reached incredible heights as a third-round pick out of FCS team Eastern Washington — was difficult.
“When it ended with the Rams, we weren’t in a good place,” Kupp told The Athletic’s Mike Silver last month.
Like Kupp, Seattle middle linebacker Ernest Jones felt thrown aside by Los Angeles.
“They were done with him,” Jones said of Kupp. “‘He’s not worth it.’ They said that about a lot of us.”
After his record-setting 2021, Kupp logged just nine games in 2022 and only 12 across each of the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
The Rams tried to trade Kupp, then nearing his 32nd birthday, this past offseason before cutting him. Seattle scooped him up on a three-year, $45 million deal.
Macdonald, who calls defensive plays for Seattle and had been the Baltimore Ravens’ defensive coordinator before that, knew that Kupp was “a pain in the butt” to game plan against, which played a big role in the decision to add him.
“You could have him covered on paper, but he’s still going to get open,” Macdonald said via ESPN at league meetings in April, weeks after his team signed Kupp. “That’s something you have to experience in-game. You have to account for him on possession downs and high-leverage situations.”
Much like his NFC Championship performance, the surface-level numbers don’t do Kupp’s first year in Seattle justice. He finished the regular season with 47 catches for 593 yards and two touchdowns. The touchdowns were a career low, and the catches and yards were his second-fewest in a season.
But like Macdonald had said months earlier, Kupp was terrific in key situations. Eleven of his 14 catches on third down went for a first down, the highest rate on the team. He has been a key run blocker, willing to do the dirty work that won’t show up in a box score. In the regular season, the Seahawks had a 46% rushing success rate with Kupp on the field and a 36% rushing success rate without him on the field.
He has also been a teammate, sidekick and mentor to two breakout stars: Puka Nacua in Los Angeles and Smith-Njigba in Seattle.
“We wouldn’t be the team we are without Coop, just what he brings on and off the field,” Smith-Njigba said. “He’s a true leader, a true warrior, and it’s an honor to line up next to him. How he’s elevated my game, I can’t thank him enough.”
Kupp may be far removed from his record-setting days, but his impact is felt throughout the team. Individually, Kupp is one of just eight wide receivers to win Super Bowl MVP. He could become the sixth to have a Super Bowl MVP and multiple Super Bowl titles, and the first to do so with multiple teams.
As one of just a few Seahawks with prior Super Bowl experience, Kupp has tried to help his teammates navigate all the extracurriculars, too.
“When it comes time to play the game, it’s just us,” Kupp said Monday. “It’s just gonna be us on the field together, going to play the game that we’ve played over and over again our entire lives, so just live in that place.”
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