LOS ANGELES — Endings stink.
They can be especially difficult in the NFL, where the rare fairytale — player walks into the sunset of retirement after a championship, on his terms and with his preferred team — happens every so often, enough to believe it’s possible.
More often, it doesn’t. More often, an ending is a hard thing. A one-sided thing, as Los Angeles Rams longtime star receiver Cooper Kupp has made clear over the last several weeks as the team worked with his representatives to first trade him, then ultimately released him Wednesday as the new league year began.
Kupp believes he can still contribute to an offense at a high level. Rams coach Sean McVay wants to rebuild his passing game through third-year star Puka Nacua. In free agency this week, the team sought perimeter and speed threats to complement Nacua, nabbing top-tier veteran receiver Davante Adams and extending homegrown receiver Tutu Atwell. It’s likely the Rams look to the draft, too.
Kupp has been the subject of trade conversations for months, so while this ending is difficult, it also felt inevitable. Only Kupp, though, could thread the needle as a catalyst for the team in his arrival as a third-round draft pick in 2017 and his exit.
Rams release Cooper Kupp, ending 8-year run with former Super Bowl MVP
In spring 2017, McVay started his first offseason program as a head coach. The Rams, led by McVay’s vision for his offense, leaned toward tight ends and fullbacks in the draft (Gerald Everett, who was supposed to join Tyler Higbee in a 12 personnel-heavy scheme and Sam Rogers). Yet Kupp impressed the coach immediately as OTAs began.
As McVay and then-offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur installed the offense, McVay was distracted by the fact that Kupp was substituting out of the offense when it switched to 12 personnel, or two tight ends. It bothered the young head coach that one of his best players kept coming off the field. Thus, McVay’s 11 personnel (three receivers) system was born, led by the tandem of Kupp and veteran Robert Woods, two willing and expert blockers in the run game who did the dirty work and the finesse work in the pass game.
McVay didn’t have to substitute players, which allowed him to kill defenses with tempo while keeping many of his pre-snap looks the same. The Rams overwhelmed the league with their offensive output. The NFL changed. More teams run 11 personnel than ever. Defenses changed, too, to combat the flood of three-receiver sets.
Kupp, who tore an ACL in 2018 as the Rams went on a Super Bowl run (eventually losing to the New England Patriots), got his catharsis and redemption in 2021 during a triple crown-winning season. Rams fans won’t forget it.
Fourth quarter, fourth-and-1, backed up deep in their own territory by the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI. It was a play that had failed multiple times in practice the previous week: Matthew Stafford, Kupp and a jet sweep that kept the drive and their dream alive. The air got sucked out of SoFi Stadium as Stafford placed the ball in Kupp’s arms, then it whooshed from exhales and celebration when Kupp converted. He scored the go-ahead and ultimately game-winning touchdown a few plays (and yes, Bengals fans, penalties) later.
Now, his exit intersects with another big moment in team history. By overhauling his passing game to run through a player not named Kupp for the first time in his head coaching tenure, McVay has moved the Rams into a new era. The second Stafford agreed to return to the Rams for at least another season, that era got a name.
The moves the Rams made in free agency only solidify the message: shoring up their run defense by adding Poona Ford, bringing back Stafford’s previous center Coleman Shelton, extending Stafford’s blind-side protector Alaric Jackson, signing Adams and extending Atwell to complement a young roster with 10 starters from the last two drafts.
Los Angeles will try to make another run at a championship two years after gutting most of its Super Bowl roster and sprint-rebuilding back into contention much earlier than most expected.
Kupp, of course, was part of that effort. There isn’t a new star receiver — the brilliant Nacua, a fifth-round pick who will now be the No. 1 in McVay’s offense — without the old one. Kupp has mentored Nacua. He set a blueprint for the scouting staff that led to Nacua’s eventual selection in 2023. Kupp’s absence due to the injuries that have plagued him since 2021 (and eventually became a factor in his exit in L.A.) even set the table for Nacua to play much earlier than a rookie usually would in McVay’s system.
Now, Kupp will play somewhere else. His ending is still a beginning for himself, the Rams and another team. And football churns onward, its moments of irony often bittersweet to its participants.
(Photo of Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp: Harry How / Getty Images)
