Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp just earned the NFL Offensive Player of the Year award last week during the league’s annual award show.
The former mid-round pick from Eastern Washington is coming off a regular-season performance that saw him lead the NFL in receptions (145), receiving yards (1,947) and receiving touchdowns (16). He also caught an absurd 76% of his targets from Matthew Stafford.
Early on in Super Bowl LVI Sunday evening, the Cincinnati Bengals found out first-hand just how hard this connection is to stop.
After Los Angeles opened the scoring on a touchdown strike from Stafford to Odell Beckham Jr., it was Cooper Kupp’s chance to shine.
Up 7-3 early in the second quarter, Stafford hit Kupp on an 11-yard touchdown to give the Rams a 13-3 lead.
That was just your basic roll out from Stafford with Kupp going up against single coverage on the outside. Bengals cornerback Eli Apple had absolutely no chance here.
By virtue of this catch, Kupp had hauled in 2-of-3 targets for 31 yards and a score after a quarter-plus of action. Remember, he 25-of-32 targets for 386 yards in three playoff games leading up to Super Bowl LVI.
As for Stafford, the quarterback completed 9-of-10 passes for 127 yards with two touchdowns and zero interceptions to open the game. That seems good.