Cooper Kupp broke out in a way that almost no one expected him to this season. There was a strong belief that his numbers would improve with Matthew Stafford at quarterback, but no one thought he would threaten Calvin Johnson’s single-season receiving record.
Kupp needs just 231 more yards to break the record of 1,964 yards in one season, which Johnson set back in 2012 – coincidentally with Stafford also throwing him passes. Jalen Ramsey doesn’t want Kupp to wait until the 17th game to break that mark, though. He hopes he goes off and breaks it this week, and then continues to put up huge numbers all postseason.
Because when Kupp and Stafford are connecting, the Rams offense is usually having success.
“Coop is one of the most unselfish guys, which is great for the team,” Ramsey said Thursday. “But when Coop’s ballin’, we ballin’ as a team. So selfishly, I hope Coop breaks the record this week. I hope Coop goes crazy this week, the next week, every playoff game. Just because when him and Staff do have a lot of success, we have a lot of success on the offensive side of the ball, as well. I know I’m rooting for him to break that record and honestly, as many records as he can break. That would be dope.”
Kupp has a chance to break the record this week against a depleted Ravens secondary that gave up 525 yards to Joe Burrow in Week 16, with 194 of those yards going to Tee Higgins. It’ll take a career-best performance for Kupp to top Johnson in 16 games instead of 17, but it shouldn’t be ruled out with the way he’s been playing.
At the very least, all he needs to do is maintain his average of 115.6 yards per game to break Johnson’s record by … 1 yard.
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