Cooper Kupp's Fantasy Season Limps to Terrible Finish

2024 Fantasy Football Impact

We can glean a few things from those numbers. Chief among them:

1. Kupp doesn't matter nearly as much anymore when Nacua is healthy. That was the biggest difference between the two spans. Nacua played less than half of Week 1 before missing the next five games. He returned for weeks 8 and 9 but didn't get back to his usual snap allotment until Week 10.
2. The Rams cut way down on their passing late this season. That might not be immediately obvious from the numbers above. But it can help explain why Kupp's air-yards shares looked similar over both spans even while his route and target shares declined.

QB Matthew Stafford went from averaging 35.8 pass attempts over his first nine games this season (through Week 10) to just 27.9 attempts per game over the past seven -- despite having Nacua and Kupp healthy over that latter span.

Stafford completed less than 60% of his passes in three of the past five games and finished four of those five outings short of 190 passing yards.

The Rams have won five straight games but also fallen short of 20 points each of the past three weeks -- totaling just one TD pass across matchups with the 49ers, Jets, and Cardinals.

That offensive shift and meek production seems at least a little damning of both Kupp and Stafford -- neither of whom look attractive for a Week 18 home date with Seattle, if you're still playing fantasy.

Dynasty Impact

Kupp will turn 32 in mid-June. WRs have historically remained productive through that season, though no category of WR we've researched has typically exceeded 86% of peak production.

Kupp remains under contract through 2026. There's an "out" after this season, according to Spotrac. But that would apparently mean just about $7.5 million in cap savings and $22.3 million in dead cap -- vs. a roughly $30 million cap hit if Kupp sticks around.

The Rams don't look like they'll "need" that cap space for 2025. Spotrac has them projected for the 14th-most space on the 2025 cap (nearly $58 million).

So the guess here is that Kupp sticks around for at least one more season.

But we'll be expecting a lot less production from him in that age-32 campaign. And I'll be curious to see what the team looks to add.

It'll probably be tough to trade Kupp for meaningful dynasty value this offseason. But be ready to seize on any opportunity that arises.