One of the bigger moves that the Los Angeles Rams made last offseason was moving on from wide receiver Cooper Kupp. Over the previous eight years, Kupp had become a franchise legend, earning the triple crown and winning the Super Bowl MVP in 2021. However, following injuries and a drop in production, the Rams decided to move on.<\/p>\n
Kupp had a cap-hit of $22.26 million in 2025 and the Rams simply were not going to pay that. It\u2019s possible that Kupp would have taken less money to stay with the Rams, but given the direction of the offense with Puka Nacua, it made more sense to go in a different direction. Kupp barely had 700 yards in 2024 while playing 12 games.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Kupp caught a touchdown against his former team in the NFC Championship game. Following the win, The Athletic\u2019s Mike Silver put out what was essentially a PR puff piece for Kupp<\/a>, painting the Rams as the bad guy throughout the entire situation. Wrote Silver,<\/p>\n That\u2019s really just the beginning of a character assassination of Rams\u2019 brass and internal workings.<\/p>\n The Rams Urged Kupp to Retire and Sabotaged his free agency<\/p>\n According to Silver, the Rams actively sabotaged the free agency period for Kupp, smearing his image around the league. After urging Kupp to retire, Silver reports that the Rams told teams not to pay him anything more than the league minimum and that injuries had taken their toll. These rumblings that allegedly came from the Rams resulted in doubts around the league<\/p>\n However, it wouldn\u2019t have taken people around the league to jump to that conclusion on their own. Since Kupp had 1,947 yards in 2021, he had 2,259 yards in the next three years combined. The former Rams wide receiver only played nine games in 2022 while playing 12 games in 2023 and 2024. Anybody who watched Kupp last year would have come to the conclusion that there was a drop in level.<\/p>\n For most of this year, that was also the case. Kupp\u2019s 593 yards receiving were the lowest of his career outside of 2018 when he played just eight games. His 1.46 yards per route run was the lowest of his career. The efficiency has taken a steep fall since Kupp got hurt in 2022.<\/p>\n Rams staffers causing a skirmish at halftime<\/p>\n \u201cLate in the first half of that game, Kupp\u2019s red-zone fumble had killed a potential Seattle scoring drive. According to several witnesses, the fallout from that play sparked a confrontation between Rams and Seahawks coaches as they spilled out of their upstairs boxes at half\u2019s end and took a shared elevator ride to field level. The witnesses said several Rams assistants were discussing the fumble in question as they neared the elevator. One offensive coach asked which Seattle player had been responsible, and when another replied that it was Kupp, the coach (Drew Wilkins) snickered as though he expected the answer. That drew the ire of Seahawks outside linebackers coach Chris Partridge\u2026Partridge, witnesses said, had to be held back by other Seahawks coaches in the packed elevator, averting a possible skirmish.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s very possible that something like this did happen. However, the way Silver describes it makes it sound like a pair of high school mean girls bullying an outcast. A confrontation may have happened, but we\u2019re also only getting one side of the story and it\u2019s the story that favors Kupp. Rams defensive pass rush coordinator Drew Wilkins may have been talking about the fumble. It\u2019s just seems unlikely that the cause of the skirmish happened as described.<\/p>\n Division rivals and coaches of those teams aren\u2019t going to compliment each other in game. There\u2019s going to be some internal smack talk. Just because this happened, it isn\u2019t evidence that Kupp wasn\u2019t respected within the Rams organization.<\/p>\n Mike Silver has a history<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when that happens, if you are Cooper Kupp, you\u2019ll no longer be invisible \u2014 to the casual fan, or to the skeptics who no longer wanted you.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to pieces like this, it\u2019s important to know where the source material is coming from. Silver has a history of doing this. For years, he enabled the Jeff Fisher regime. When Jared Goff was traded away, Silver painted the Rams as this sleazy organization that cast away this great quarterback. He is the ultimate \u2018quid pro quo\u2019 journalist. In exchange for access, Silver will write you a PR puff piece. However, that\u2019s not journalism. He\u2019s a publicist disguised as an insider and journalist.<\/p>\n If you read any piece from Mike Silver, the Rams always come out looking one way.<\/p>\n All of this starts in 2014 when Silver is given unprecedented access to the Rams\u2019 war room and they drafted Michael Sam. Later that season, Silver made Fisher out to be the hero when special teams played a key role in the Rams beating the Seahawks while the Rams sat at 1-4 before the game.<\/p>\n In 2016 when the Rams season started with a 28-0 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Silver jumped to Fisher\u2019s aid after a 17-13 win to the Arizona Cardinals. Silver described it as, \u201cChristmas in Tinseltown could be pretty festive this year, and January could be even better.\u201d The Rams won a single game the rest of the season. Silver made sure to include all of the excuses such as the move in the offseason and doing it with a backup quarterback to make Fisher\u2019s 3-1 record look that much better.<\/p>\n When Fisher was fired, Silver covered for his buddy and called the transition from Fisher to interim John Fassell \u201cawkward.\u201d<\/a> This ensured that the Rams didn\u2019t come out in a positive light in that transition.<\/p>\n That same season, Silver wrote about Goff\u2019s first career start. Despite going 17-for-34 for 134 yards, Silver wrote that Goff was \u2018hardly overwhelmed by the moment.\u201d He also made sure to mention that Goff handled the rain just as well as veteran quarterback Ryan Tannehill. This paragraph sums it up nicely,<\/p>\n \u201cHe showed the propensity for smart, quick decision-making and trademark rapid release that made him such an enticing prospect. He picked up blitzes, uncorked some of the throws (like deep outs) that Keenum had trouble completing and made relatively few mistakes. Goff also slid in the pocket to extend throws and surprisingly did some damage with his feet, rushing four times for 11 yards. In the fourth quarter, he had a crowd-pleasing, 11-yard scamper (on third-and-10) that was called back because of an illegal block by left tackle Greg Robinson.\u201d<\/p>\n Notice the dig on Case Keenum and mention of a big play being called back while a 134-yard performance comes out looking like an All-Pro performance. It\u2019s worth noting that Silver has deep connections to Cal as that\u2019s where he went to school. Goff also happened to attend Cal like his father Jerry.<\/p>\n