IMO is a little overvalued, coming off a record setting season, with a perfect storm of Kupp’s injuries & Stafford resurgence. And the Rams don’t have a plan B at QB at the moment, which is a little troubling.
I have him more in the WR20 range, when most rank him top 10. I kinda want to capitalize on that value difference.
QB situations change for a lot of WR's and you got to figure McVay will figure out the QB situation.
But the Kupp injury performance is something I'd encourage people to look deeper inot. He had 13 full games with Kupp and in those 13 games he basically would have prorarated to all time historic season, top 4 all time, almost dead on identical to Justin Jeffersons.
JJ, 16g, 125 targets, 88/1,400/7
Puka, 13 games with Kupp which includes the playoff game, 111 targets, 71/1,125/5 and prorated over JJ's 16 games that's 136 targets for 87/1,385/6.
Which is again almost dead on equal to Jefferson but he'd have needed 11 more targets to be fair.
I'd also point out I think he was slowed by a knee injury for about a month.
So to people who act like his numbers are artificlaly inflated from the games Kupp missed it I'd tell you to look again.
Now for sure he was better in the 4 full games without Kupp. Had 52 targets for 39/501/1 TD. The TD's are low but that's a ridicilous 16 game proration pace of 208 targets/156/2,004. But then you step back and realize that the most ridicilous WR fantasy season we've seen in the last I don't know how long was Kupp's triple crown season when he went for 145/1,947/16 (but in 17 games).
They did not touch Kupp's contract this year when doing so would have created salary cap space. His current base is $15m, second highest on the team and about $9M mor then anyone else that was not signed this off-season. Teams typically start taking this approach, not adjusting base salaries to create cap space, for players they are planning a future without. The only bad news in this part of the analysis, is that they did the same thing with Stafford.
But to me, in summary, he was great with Kupp but instead of getting caught up in being down on the fact he was better without Kupp in the lineup I instead am looking at the possiblities of the extra level, the overall WR1 level, he can attain without him which my guess is coming soon.
Again the QB sitiuation is not known but how much has Justin Jefferson fallen with an unknown QB situation but Lamb's likely about to in the same boat, Justin Jefferson is in the same boat and for the record I'm mighty high on Mccarthy the QB but he may not a boon to JJ, remains to be seen. Tyreek went from Mahomes to Tua and improved. He'll have McVay and that's what matters the most to me.
Puka's health and injury history is my biggest concern with him, I got him right around WR 5-6. I'd caution about falling into a trap of not being properly high on him because he was cheap to acquire.