Cooper Kupp

Fantasy Upside

Last season was by far Cooper Kupp’s best season as his 94 receptions for 1161 yards and 10 touchdowns were all career-bests. Kupp was one of the best WRs to own in fantasy before his Week 9 bye as he had five games in that eight-game span with over 100 yards including one for a season-best 220 yards right before the bye. However, immediately after that, his usage took a steep decline as the offense moved away from their signature three-WR sets to heavier two-TE set to help quell their offensive line woes. Even though Kupp’s usage was not the same, he scored a touchdown in each of the last five games, still proving his ability to be productive in any version of this Ram’s offense.

Fantasy Downside

Despite Kupp's WR4 finish in half-PPR leagues last year, there were plenty of red flags that should be concerning for 2020. Kupp seemingly took a back seat to Tyler Higbee towards the end of the season as their two-TE set proved to beneficial to the entire offense—often being benched throughout the game by Sean McVay. The team’s willingness to trade away Brandin Cooks further solidifies their stance on moving away from the 3-wide receiver set that brought Kupp so much success.
2020 Bottom Line

It will be interesting to see how this LA Rams offensive breaks down, as pending which way they decide to structure their offense is the deciding factor if Kupp is in store for another high-end WR1 season or a low-end WR3. We have Kupp ranked 12th amongst WRs and his current ADP in 12-team leagues has him going at the end of the third round. Kupp has always been incredibly productive when targeted, however, the number of targets he will get in 2020 might be too big of an unknown to take him as early as he is going.

Week 16 at San Francisco 49ers
Cooper Kupp's dominant first half of the 2019 season is a distant memory, as his decent-but-unspectacular second half continued with a WR26 finish in Week 15. Kupp has caught every one of his last 16 targets over the previous 3 games, and he's also scored a touchdown in each of those matchups. That's made Kupp an extremely consistent fringe-WR2, cold comfort for fantasy owners hoping they'd landed a high-end WR1.

The Rams travel to San Francisco to face a 49ers defense with an aFPA to wide receivers that ranks 3rd in the NFL. Kupp lines up in the slot for the majority of his snaps, where he'll see plenty of coverage from 49ers cornerback D.J. Reed, which should be a challenge for Kupp, but it's not a reason to stay away from him. It appears as though his 29% snap share in Week 14 was just an aberration, as he bounced back with a 92% snap share last week. Kupp should see enough target volume to again make him a fairly safe bet as a WR2.

Week 14 at Seattle Seahawks
Cooper Kupp came very close to a return to his WR1 ways last week, finishing as the WR16 with 65 yards and a touchdown on six receptions. A matchup with the Cardinals' sieve-like passing defense certainly didn't hurt, but Kupp was out-targeted by both Robert Woods and tight end Tyler Higbee. Through Week 14, Kupp has the second-highest offensive snap share among Rams wide receivers at 87%, and his 0.28 PPR points per snap lead the group.

Kupp faces the Seahawks in Week 14 in a game that Vegas projects to be among the highest-scoring of the week. The Seahawks rank 18th in aFPA to wide receivers and ninth in aFPA to running backs, which further indicates plenty of opportunity for Kupp. Kupp also draws the most favorable cornerback matchup among Rams receivers against Akeem King, who took over slot cornerback duties from recently-released Jamar Taylor. This might be Kupp's final stress-free start of the fantasy playoffs with matchups against the Cowboys and 49ers incoming, but for Week 14 he's a solid start as a WR1.