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WR Cooper Kupp, LAR (5 Viewers)

cockroach said:
Oh yea, I wouldn't project him for that, but he has the hands and route running ability to make it a reality
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Yeah I don't buy into the argument that he is already approaching his ceiling.  He may not be an athletic specimen, but there's no reason why his skills as a technician won't sharpen.  Likewise, his rapport with Goff, his ability to analyze video, read defenses, etc.

 
menobrown said:
Not sure what it all means but Kupp also tied for NFL lead in cushion yards allowed per target.
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Thanks for posting this; I haven't heard of this stat before.  Here's the full listing if anyone is interested:

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/receiving#average-cushion

Cooper's average cushion was 7.4 yards.  The other receivers who are in the next 10 are all generally either speedsters or slot receivers (Torrey Smith, Taylor Gabriel, Travis Benjamin, Tyreek Hill, Desean Jackson, Ryan Grant, Rishard Matthews, Tyler Lockett, Kendall Wright, Ted Ginn).

For guys like Tyreek and Ginn, the stat seems pretty clear.  Not so sure about Cooper, who definitely ran some wheel-type routes down the sidelines but seemed to run mostly shallow routes.

 
menobrown said:
Not sure what it all means but Kupp also tied for NFL lead in cushion yards allowed per target.
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rschroeder1 said:
Thanks for posting this; I haven't heard of this stat before.  Here's the full listing if anyone is interested:

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/receiving#average-cushion

Cooper's average cushion was 7.4 yards.  The other receivers who are in the next 10 are all generally either speedsters or slot receivers (Torrey Smith, Taylor Gabriel, Travis Benjamin, Tyreek Hill, Desean Jackson, Ryan Grant, Rishard Matthews, Tyler Lockett, Kendall Wright, Ted Ginn).

For guys like Tyreek and Ginn, the stat seems pretty clear.  Not so sure about Cooper, who definitely ran some wheel-type routes down the sidelines but seemed to run mostly shallow routes.
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2nd to last - AB
5th to last - Gronkowski
6th to last - Hopkins

This pretty much means nothing by itself.

Average Cushion (CUSH)

The distance (in yards) measured between a WR/TE and the defender they’re lined up against at the time of snap on all targets.

 
Hankmoody said:
2nd to last - AB
5th to last - Gronkowski
6th to last - Hopkins

This pretty much means nothing by itself.

Average Cushion (CUSH)

The distance (in yards) measured between a WR/TE and the defender they’re lined up against at the time of snap on all targets.
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Don't recall anyone saying a single thing about looking at it only in the context of itself. That's not all what is interesting about it but you seem to have it all figured out so I'll leave you to it.

 
menobrown said:
Don't recall anyone saying a single thing about looking at it only in the context of itself. That's not all what is interesting about it but you seem to have it all figured out so I'll leave you to it.
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Sorry waiter, you have the wrong table, I didn't order extra snark.  The posts had no other discussion aside from that stat so I'm not sure what you expect us to take from them, especially when it starts with "I don't know what it means but".

 
Hankmoody said:
Sorry waiter, you have the wrong table, I didn't order extra snark.  The posts had no other discussion aside from that stat so I'm not sure what you expect us to take from them, especially when it starts with "I don't know what it means but".
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I served what was ordered and there was plenty on full display to see the context past just the stat.

ETA not looking for a pissing match and I was going to say this earlier but was pressed for time. And  what I was going to say is why the stat is interesting, why it deserved looking into. That's part of what I look at stats like this for, something to try and paint a picture  of how this guy had success or lack thereof. I truly thought the context of the convo shined a light on this but sounds like not.

I had saw these stats a few days ago, found them when I was actually looking up info on Tyreek Hill. As @rschroeder1 had indicated what caught my eye was that a primary slot possession WR was leading the league in a category otherwise dominated by WR's we generally see as "take the top off" kind of WR's. This struck me as odd a few days ago.  I even looked up his average air yards per target and it was on the low side, around 9.5. So we got a guy who is getting almost 7.5 yards of cushion per target  but averaging just 9.5 air yards target. This is not normal. I moved on from that at the time but it stuck in my head, something I meant to go back and revisit but my initial thought was that it had me lower on Kupp, that this was kind of painting a picture of a guy who was taking what the defense gave him.

Now when I read the stat saying he was the best WR in the league vs press coverage I recalled the cushion yards and thought now this interesting and for Kupp interesting in a really good way.  This no longer painted a picture of a guy taking what the defense gave him to me. I'd like to get weekly info on this but why I said "I dont know it means" is because it made me wonder was he getting so much cushion because he was destroying teams who tried to press him? If so this paints a picture of a guy who is a matchup problem. You press him he beats you, you give him a fat cushion and he'll give you death by a million pin pricks.

This in a nutshell is why that stat mattered to me in the context of him being tops in the league vs press coverage and cushion and might help answer why a possession WR was sitting in a cushion category generally reserved for speed merchants.

 
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menobrown said:
I served what was ordered and there was plenty on full display to see the context past just the stat.

ETA not looking for a pissing match and I was going to say this earlier but was pressed for time. And  what I was going to say is why the stat is interesting, why it deserved looking into. That's part of what I look at stats like this for, something to try and paint a picture  of how this guy had success or lack thereof. I truly thought the context of the convo shined a light on this but sounds like not.

I had saw these stats a few days ago, found them when I was actually looking up info on Tyreek Hill. As @rschroeder1 had indicated what caught my eye was that a primary slot possession WR was leading the league in a category otherwise dominated by WR's we generally see as "take the top off" kind of WR's. This struck me as odd a few days ago.  I even looked up his average air yards per target and it was on the low side, around 9.5. So we got a guy who is getting almost 7.5 yards of cushion per target  but averaging just 9.5 air yards target. This is not normal. I moved on from that at the time but it stuck in my head, something I meant to go back and revisit but my initial thought was that it had me lower on Kupp, that this was kind of painting a picture of a guy who was taking what the defense gave him.

Now when I read the stat saying he was the best WR in the league vs press coverage I recalled the cushion yards and thought now this interesting and for Kupp interesting in a really good way.  This no longer painted a picture of a guy taking what the defense gave him to me. I'd like to get weekly info on this but why I said "I dont know it means" is because it made me wonder was he getting so much cushion because he was destroying teams who tried to press him? If so this paints a picture of a guy who is a matchup problem. You press him he beats you, you give him a fat cushion and he'll give you death by a million pin pricks.

This in a nutshell is why that stat mattered to me in the context of him being tops in the league vs press coverage and cushion and might help answer why a possession WR was sitting in a cushion category generally reserved for speed merchants.
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Really good breakdown.  Your logic makes sense - teams surely have this data on a week-to-week basis.

There could be a few other factors as well.  I don't have hard evidence on this, but anecdotally I would say with some confidence Kupp ran a lot of drags and curls while Woods and Watkins were on more downfield routes (we got a lot of Rams games on TV in Chicago this year, but I am by no means the best source on this).  Given the efficiency of the Rams offense last year, it could very well be that stopping Kupp short was not as much of a priority for defenses as was containing Watkins and Woods over the top.

Again going anecdotally, there's one particular play design that really stuck out to me, just because I thought it was pretty cool.  Kupp would run a shallow square out toward the sideline and then turn the corner and convert the route into a flag pattern.  Again, just anecdotal, but there were a fair number of those routes that turned into big gains.  Seems like the type of outcome that could lead to defenses giving him such a cushion.

 
menobrown said:
I served what was ordered and there was plenty on full display to see the context past just the stat.

ETA not looking for a pissing match and I was going to say this earlier but was pressed for time. And  what I was going to say is why the stat is interesting, why it deserved looking into. That's part of what I look at stats like this for, something to try and paint a picture  of how this guy had success or lack thereof. I truly thought the context of the convo shined a light on this but sounds like not.

I had saw these stats a few days ago, found them when I was actually looking up info on Tyreek Hill. As @rschroeder1 had indicated what caught my eye was that a primary slot possession WR was leading the league in a category otherwise dominated by WR's we generally see as "take the top off" kind of WR's. This struck me as odd a few days ago.  I even looked up his average air yards per target and it was on the low side, around 9.5. So we got a guy who is getting almost 7.5 yards of cushion per target  but averaging just 9.5 air yards target. This is not normal. I moved on from that at the time but it stuck in my head, something I meant to go back and revisit but my initial thought was that it had me lower on Kupp, that this was kind of painting a picture of a guy who was taking what the defense gave him.

Now when I read the stat saying he was the best WR in the league vs press coverage I recalled the cushion yards and thought now this interesting and for Kupp interesting in a really good way.  This no longer painted a picture of a guy taking what the defense gave him to me. I'd like to get weekly info on this but why I said "I dont know it means" is because it made me wonder was he getting so much cushion because he was destroying teams who tried to press him? If so this paints a picture of a guy who is a matchup problem. You press him he beats you, you give him a fat cushion and he'll give you death by a million pin pricks.

This in a nutshell is why that stat mattered to me in the context of him being tops in the league vs press coverage and cushion and might help answer why a possession WR was sitting in a cushion category generally reserved for speed merchants.
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In the interest of maintaining a productive conversation I'll just continue to be clueless how one would be expected to extrapolate all of this from the original context.

You propose a solid theorum here - "made me wonder was he getting so much cushion because he was destroying teams who tried to press him?" - is there a way for us to further this?  Can we find any correlation with other similar WR's, or other WR's that have had similar success? 

And how does this relate to guys like AB and Hopkins - you're kind of saying that, with such small average cushions, they must not beat press coverage?  I'd find that hard to believe.  Maybe they just beat everything?  Or they beat cushion so much worse than press that it's worth it for defenses to gamble?

I'd love to look at the raw data - do you have this on the press coverage stat?  I don't get into PFF much, is this subscription-only information? 

 
Rams Trade for Brandin Cooks (in Case You Didn’t Really Believe They Were All-In)

Excerpt:

Though the Rams led the league in scoring last year and finished 11-5, a persistent problem they had was defenses not feeling compelled to double-team Sammy Watkins, who often aligned on the weak side. Instead of helping on Watkins, the safety to that side would help inside against L.A.’s downfield crossing routes (usually run by Cooper Kupp). That help won’t be available now because Cooks has north/sound speed that demands a safety stay over the top. He also has the quickness to hurt you on east/west routes, which will allow him to be productive from any spot in the formation (Watkins didn’t necessarily offer this dimension). Our Albert Breer says Rams head coach Sean McVay has long been fond of Cooks and explored trading for him last year, before the Saints traded Cooks to New England.
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kutta said:
What do we all think of the Cooks signing and how it affects Kupp?
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It sucks in my  opinion. Great for the offense and great for Goff but Cooks will take an equal or bigger piece of the pie than Sammy did. The offense as a whole can't get much better than it did last year so we are talking about similar numbers at best for Kupp, likely worse numbers with fewer opportunities available to him. Barring injury, it's a hit for Kupp owners. Feels like Nelson, Cobb and Adams of 2 years ago. Rodgers couldn't support 3 guys to fantasy relevance, I think Kupp will, at best be the same, at worst be mostly irrelevant.

 
kutta said:
What do we all think of the Cooks signing and how it affects Kupp?
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I don't think it can do anything but hurt unfortunately since Cooks will see more than the 70 targets that Watkins saw last season - and Kupp will need some level of volume to be a fantasy asset.

I think his owners (I am one) will need to hope for an uptick in the passing game overall and/or him overtaking Woods (who I also own) as the second in line for targets. If he's third in the pecking order, I don't think its a deathknell for his value, but it would be hard for him to be consistent from week to week.

 
I think last year was the floor.  It’s clear as day who Goff trusts on 3rd down and must have situations.  Kupp.  

He’s a legit WR3 in ppr’s with a rock solid floor and a ceiling of mid WR2 (TD dependent). 

 
Dr. Octopus said:
I don't think it can do anything but hurt unfortunately since Cooks will see more than the 70 targets that Watkins saw last season - and Kupp will need some level of volume to be a fantasy asset.

I think his owners (I am one) will need to hope for an uptick in the passing game overall and/or him overtaking Woods (who I also own) as the second in line for targets. If he's third in the pecking order, I don't think its a deathknell for his value, but it would be hard for him to be consistent from week to week.
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I expect to see an uptick for the passing game. LY Goff threw for 3800 and 28.  Can see 4K+ and 30 but I also see a bit of a down turn for Gurley’s recieving stats.  Teams will key on that dump off this yr which should open the middle more for Woods and Kupp.  Can easily see the extra few 100 yrs from Goff’s increase and 100/150 off Gurley’s total spreading out between the 3 WR’s.  

 
I see it as a short-term negative, long-term positive. I think Cooks will get a lot more balls than Watkins did this past year and even with some improvement in year 3 from Goff it won't be enough to offset that. However, longer term I feel like Woods is the guy who will actually be impacted more by Cooks, especially if they extend Cooks like they are talking about. Rams have a lot of big contracts looming and Woods has no more guaranteed or dead money on his contract after 2018. While not an overly huge cap number in 2019 ($5M) I think that base salary + roster bonus with nothing guaranteed may end up looking like an easy cap savings next year.

 
dkp993 said:
I expect to see an uptick for the passing game. LY Goff threw for 3800 and 28.  Can see 4K+ and 30 but I also see a bit of a down turn for Gurley’s recieving stats.  Teams will key on that dump off this yr which should open the middle more for Woods and Kupp.  Can easily see the extra few 100 yrs from Goff’s increase and 100/150 off Gurley’s total spreading out between the 3 WR’s.  
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The Rams play a more difficult schedule this year than last year and Goff only threw the ball 31.8 times per game last season, on pace for 509 pass attempts last season. I can see the coach putting more trust in Goff this season.

Last year NFL teams passed the ball 34.2 times per game which was down from 35.7 in 2016 and 2015. So on average teams throw the ball 563 times per year.

I could see Goffs pass attempts rising to 550 or 34.4 times per game in 2018.  If that does happen then the pie grows a bit for all receivers. I still expect Gurley to be targeted a lot, but likely not as much as last season as Goff gets comfortable with other players on the team, he is already there with Kupp.

I can see Kupps numbers possibly increasing as you see happen with a lot of rookie players going into their second season and perhaps a slight uptick in targets if Goff does pass the ball a bit more (3 more times per game) but for the most part I would just expect him to repeat what he did last season which was very good and already setting the bar pretty high.

Kupp was WR 27 in standard scoring leagues and 25th in PPR leagues, so if he can add anything more than last season it would put him in WR two territory for fantasy. If not he is still a good WR three.

Brandin Cooks has averaged 120 targets per year the last 3 seasons but this was playing with offenses that threw the ball on average 640 or so times. Cooks got 18.7% of the team targets with the Saints and Patriots over the last 3 seasons. If he does the same with the Rams and they thrwo 550 times that would be 103 targets for Cooks. I can still see Kupp getting 90 or maybe 100 targets himself coexisting with Cooks and Woods.

Robert Woods is more the player to perhaps be concerned about. He was a veteran and he built good chemistry with Goff going into the regular season. Woods averaged 7 targets per game last season in the 12 games he played. This would be 113 targets over 16 games. 

I don't see all 3 of their WR getting 100 targets in 2018 because Gurley should still get 70 targets if not more than that like he had last season, Everett may earn more playing time as well. 

I think Woods is the most likely of the 3 to see a bit of a haircut. Maybe down to 80 targets or 5 targets per game for him if Kupp does maintain what he did, or builds on it a bit and Cooks gets his 100 targets or something close to that.

 
I’ll think I’m in agreement with what most here are saying. Probably doesn’t affect Kupp too much, but could be a slight downturn. But, there’s a chance things open up a bit more and he actually improves a bit.

Either way it seems chances are pretty good he’ll finish as WR 23-33 ish.

 
Cooper Kupp was more or less unstoppable in Tuesday's practice. The second-year receiver was a go-to guy for Goff and the chemistry was obvious in the 11-on-11 unscripted portion. The Ravens tried lining up slot corners and regular corners and even hybrid linebackers on him but to no avail. In general, he was a matchup problem and with Robert Woods and Brandin Cookson the outside, and the Rams hopeful for a breakthrough season for tight end Tyler Higbee, Kupp remains in line for a bevy of targets. Goff and he have something special going on.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2018-nfl-training-camps-keeping-jared-goff-healthy-a-priority-as-rams-lack-qb-depth/

 
Hoh said:
Cooper Kupp was more or less unstoppable in Tuesday's practice. The second-year receiver was a go-to guy for Goff and the chemistry was obvious in the 11-on-11 unscripted portion. The Ravens tried lining up slot corners and regular corners and even hybrid linebackers on him but to no avail. In general, he was a matchup problem and with Robert Woods and Brandin Cookson the outside, and the Rams hopeful for a breakthrough season for tight end Tyler Higbee, Kupp remains in line for a bevy of targets. Goff and he have something special going on.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2018-nfl-training-camps-keeping-jared-goff-healthy-a-priority-as-rams-lack-qb-depth/
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Good to hear some good news on Kupp. I don't buy into the common notion that he won't improve much this year. I think he's in for a pretty nice year.

 
Milkman said:
I'm not buying it. I think he regresses this year with Cooks addition. 
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Why would he regress with Cooks?  Two completely different players.  Kupp is a QB's best friend, and will continue to develop into one of the top slot WR's in the game.  He has one of the safest floors of anyone drafted around him in my opinion.  WR2 in PPR this year.  I think he'll lead the team in receptions, and trail only Cooks in yards.  Throw 7-9 tds for good measure, as he was Goff's favorite redzone target last year.

If the Cooks signing affects anyone negatively, its Woods.

 
I think he is the guy to own here...reminds of Welker in that it will be a few years before everyone fully gets onboard and realizes how good he is...

 
JoeJoe88 said:
Why would he regress with Cooks?  Two completely different players.  Kupp is a QB's best friend, and will continue to develop into one of the top slot WR's in the game.  He has one of the safest floors of anyone drafted around him in my opinion.  WR2 in PPR this year.  I think he'll lead the team in receptions, and trail only Cooks in yards.  Throw 7-9 tds for good measure, as he was Goff's favorite redzone target last year.

If the Cooks signing affects anyone negatively, its Woods.
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You might want to look at Woods numbers his last 10 games. He's the teams #1 not Kupp. Cooks is just going to command more targets than Watkins did. It's coming out of Kupp's target share imo. 

 
I like Kupp too but his situation changed from good to bad. Not a lot he can do with less targets. 

 
I think he’s going to be a critical piece of that offense.  I hope it translates into fantasy numbers. Sig bet, anyone?  Oh wait...?

 
I have never been a huge fan of Cooks. For first time he will be playing with a QB who is not arguably one of the top 3 best in the NFL. Goff and Kupp have a building rapport and although due to a full offseason Cooks will probably have more opportunities than Watkins did last year I think Kupp will continue to be Goff’s security blanket. The real issue for FF is that the Rams have plenty of options and I doubt any of the pass catchers will be too far in front of the others (Kupp, Cooks, Woods).

 
Not gonna lie I paid no attention to Kupp after I missed trying to get him on draft day last year. With an ADP of 38 and a finish of 25 last year I think he has great value this year. He was 9th in the league (!) in RZ targets last year. Cooks certainly won’t be stealing any of those from him. I missed him in my preliminary leagues but I’ll be on the look out in the 7th of my main league this weekend. 

I did add him to my FBG squad tho. 

 
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I think there's upside here primarily because he saw a mind melting 23 targets in the RZ last year, more than double anyone else on the team. He was actually tied with Gronk for the 5th most. His conversion rate was relatively poor but I have to imagine the targets were by design. Watkins is also a bigger threat for RZ work than Cooks, even if Cooks will likely command a higher target share than Watkins did. I also don't trust Woods to stay healthy. I don't think it would be crazy for Kupp to improve on his freshman numbers as he further establishes a rapport with Goff, even if his target share still hovers around 18-19%. If he sees some TD regression to the mean he will certainly end up being value at his ADP.

If given the choice between Cooks in the 5th, Kupp in the 8th and Woods in the 9th I'm going with Kupp every time. 

 
I always thought he was the best value but not the biggest performer of the Rams trio. Pleasantly surprised with his production so far

 
What a great start tonight. It just feels like he’s going to be pretty good for a long time.

 
he will have some iffy games and his ceiling isn’t to high because the rams have so many talented guys but Goff loves Kupp so he is still the Rams WR I want

 
King of the Jungle said:
I have never been a huge fan of Cooks. For first time he will be playing with a QB who is not arguably one of the top 3 best in the NFL. Goff and Kupp have a building rapport and although due to a full offseason Cooks will probably have more opportunities than Watkins did last year I think Kupp will continue to be Goff’s security blanket. The real issue for FF is that the Rams have plenty of options and I doubt any of the pass catchers will be too far in front of the others (Kupp, Cooks, Woods).
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I was wrong about Cooks as I never saw this type of production from him. Kupp still a contributor obviously.

 
Cooper Kupp came down with nine catches for a career-high 162 yards and two touchdowns on 11 targets Thursday in L.A.’s Week 4 win over the Vikings.

Kupp was an absolute menace on Thursday night, burning the Vikings for a ludicrous 129 yards in the first half. He dusted linebacker Anthony Barr for a 70-yard touchdown in the first quarter, then added to his haul with a ridiculous catch in the back of the end zone for his second score of the night. Kupp was mostly bottled up after halftime but he did more than enough for fantasy owners with his first-half heroics. The Eastern Washington alum now finds himself in a three-way tie with A.J. Green and Calvin Ridley for the league-lead with four receiving touchdowns. He’ll look to keep the train rolling next week against Seattle.

Sep 28 - 12:29 AM
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