Green Bay, Wisconsin – Davante Adams, DK Metcalf, and Cooper Kupp. With Adams’ ties to Green Bay and admiration for quarterback Jordan Love, Metcalf’s size, speed, and youth, and Kupp’s productivity and ties to coach Matt LaFleur, all three receivers would have been good fits for the Packers.
Kupp was the Packers’ lone real interest, but he chose to return to Washington and join with the Seattle Seahawks. The team of Sports Illustrated’s Monday Morning Quarterback analyzed one move that general managers should have done.
For the Packers, it was the signing of Kupp.
“If I was Green Bay Packers GM Brian Gutekunst, I would’ve done all I could to sign Kupp,” stated MacMillan.
Kupp, a former All-Pro who will be 32 in June, would have provided leadership and mentorship to a “young wide receiver core” that “is talented” but suffered with inconsistency last season.
As MacMillan noted out, the Packers had the third most drops in 2024 overall. The receivers were the primary culprits. Green Bay’s receivers made the most drops. Dontayvion Wicks had the second-highest drop rate among 84 receivers targeted at least 50 times, Jayden Reed the third-highest, and Romeo Doubs the 19th-highest.
Christian Watson, the only player who caught the ball well, is out with a ruptured ACL.
“Bringing in a veteran, sure-handed player such as Kupp to play a leadership role in a young Packers receiver room would have done great things for this team,” according to MacMillan. “His impact off the field may have been even more important than his impact on the field.”
Leadership is good, but productivity is superior. That was a concern for Kupp. In 2021, he won the Receiving Triple Crown with 145 receptions, 1,947 yards, and 16 touchdowns. It was one of the best individual performances by a receiver in NFL history.
In 2022, he caught 75 passes for 812 yards and six touchdowns in nine games, putting him on track for another successful season. However, he missed the final eight games of that season, as well as five games in each of 2023 and 2024. The Rams played 42 regular-season games over the course of two and a half seasons. Kupp spent 24 minutes on the field.
After being released by the Los Angeles Rams, Kupp signed a three-year, $45 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks. Kupp, a native of Yakima, Wash., and former star at Eastern Washington, was a logical fit for Seattle. Details of the contract are not disclosed, but given the money and the location, prying Kupp away from Seattle would have been quite a task for Gutekunst.
Quite a costly task for an elderly receiver with injury troubles and decreased efficiency. While he caught 67 receptions for 710 yards in 12 games last year, his 47.0 percent success rate placed him 71st among the aforementioned group of 50-target receivers. That implies he caught a lot of passes that didn’t keep the offense ahead of the sticks on first and second downs, or failed to convert on third down.
Kupp, for his part, believes he still has plenty of game.
“If the things that I see in my head, if the things that I envision when I play football, I see myself doing things,” Kupp said after signing with Seattle.
“If I hadn’t seen that on tape. If I couldn’t bring those stuff to life, I wouldn’t play football anymore.
“I still see it. I still envision me playing this game at an extremely high level. I consider myself as a rising player. Anyone who has a different narrative just hasn’t seen enough films. Obviously, it’s difficult because I can watch every rep I take. I feel great about the fact that I can still play football, and I’m grateful to the Seattle Seahawks for believing in me, and I’m really looking forward to bringing that to life over the next several years here.”
Leave a Reply