Not only will the Rams be without the services of star WR Cooper Kupp in Week 1 vs. Seattle, but it now appears as though they will need to replace his offense for additional 3 weeks as well.
Early Saturday afternoon, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the club will place Kupp on injured reserve in a bid to give him time to heal his lingering hamstring issues. As a result, the 30 year old receiver will miss at a minimum the first 4 games of the season.
Los Angeles, who were already thin at WR to begin with, will now need to shift their offense to focus on unproven commodities such as Van Jefferson, Puka Nacua, Tutu Atwell, and Ben Skowronek.
The Rams begin their season at Seattle, home against San Francisco, at Cincinnati and at Indianapolis. The earliest Kupp could potentially return would be an October 8th clash with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Now entering his 7th NFL season, the Eastern Washington alum was hoping to put together a bounce back campaign after an injury plagued 2022. Last season saw the 2021 offensive player of the year limited to just 9 games as the Rams attempted to navigate the dreaded Super Bowl hangover year.
Nevertheless, Kupp was still effective when healthy, posting 75 receptions for 812 yards and 7 total TDs. That kind of production yielded a 90.2 yards per game average, which was good for 3rd in the league trailing only Justin Jefferson (106.4) and Tyreek Hill (100.6).
The former Super Bowl champion entered training camp with a clean bill of health but recently suffered a setback and was initially considered day to day heading into September. However with the season fast approaching, and no tangible progress being made, Kupp travelled to Minnesota on Monday to see a specialist in the hopes of getting to the root cause of his ongoing issues.
Evidently that visit determined that the All-Pro wideout would need more time to ensure it didn’t become a recurring problem, which led the team to place him on the injured reserve.
Los Angeles will now travel to Seattle to take on the Seahawks in a 4:25pm ET Week 1 matchup without their primary offensive weapon.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Sewageboy. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.