Cooper Kupp has a chance to win a Super Bowl ring with his hometown squad

SAN FRANCISCO — This isn’t how Cooper Kupp envisioned it going down. If it were up to him, he would have remained with the Rams his entire career, set all sorts of receiving records, won another Super Bowl or two, and eventually retired having worn just one uniform.

It would have been the perfect ending to a flawless career.

But Kupp learned the hard way what so many others before him painfully came to realize. There aren’t many people who get to call their own shots in life.

Kupp never got the chance to write that storybook ending for himself. Not in Los Angeles, anyway. After playing eight seasons in Southern California, where he caught 634 passes for 7,776 yards and 57 touchdowns and helped bring a Super Bowl championship to the City of Angels, the Rams released Kupp.

It was characterized as a classic cost-cutting move, but the reality is the Rams felt they were better off without him.

It wasn’t a complete shock, necessarily. Kupp was on the wrong side of 30-years-old. He’d been dealing with injuries over the years. And let’s face it, it had been a while since he produced peak Kupp numbers.

But that didn’t lessen the disappointment.

“That just didn’t come to a close how I’d have pictured that coming to a close,” Kupp said.

That it led him to his home-state Seahawks, where he has played a pivotal role as a supporting player and veteran resource during Seattle’s surprising march to the Super Bowl, has considerably softened the blow.

But at the time, it was hard to see past the pain of such an important chapter in his life coming to an abrupt end.

“That was tough. There’s no doubt about it,” Kupp said.  “You spend so much time together, so much time in one place building so much, and to have that taken away was difficult.”

But he quickly turned pain into determination.

The Rams no longer valued him as an impact player. It was a kick to the gut, but they had a right to their opinion.

Kupp just didn’t have to agree with it. And he wasn’t about to let the opinion of his former team be the final say.

“I wasn’t going to allow someone else to say who I was,” Kupp said.

In fact, he saw himself far differently than the Rams did.

“I don’t doubt who I am. I believed in myself all the way through that,” Kupp said. “My belief was that I can still play this game at a high level and just needed an opportunity to do so.”

He had an ally in Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, who not only still believed in Kupp the player but also the leadership qualities he brings to a locker room. As Macdonald assessed his first season in Seattle, it was obvious that the environment he wanted to cultivate needed some reinforcement.

Kupp’s winning pedigree was grounded in a grinder’s mentality and driven by work ethic and sincere care for the process and his teammates. It was exactly what Macdonald believed was needed in Seattle.

Macdonald wasted no time conveying that to Kupp.

 “Whenever the first time we were allowed to reach out to Coop, I had him on the line,” Macdonald said. “I said, ‘Look, we don’t get opportunities to acquire a player like you,’ especially early in our program. What better player to bring in early than Cooper Kupp.”

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The impact Kupp’s made in Seattle goes far beyond just the numbers.

Yes, he had 47 catches for 593 yards and two touchdowns in 16 regular-season games. Then added nine catches for 96 yards and a touchdown in the playoffs, including the 13-yard fourth-quarter touchdown dagger against the Rams in the NFC Championship game to help the Seahawks punch their ticket to the Super Bowl.

“To see him make plays in the championship when the stakes are highest was really, really special,” Macdonald said. Really happy for him.”

But the on-field play is only one part of the story.

The tone-setting role Kupp has played in establishing a winning and caring culture has been critical to the Seahawks’ success. Specifically, the guidance he’s provided in the wide receiver room has been invaluable. That includes the work he’s poured into Jaxson Smith-Njigba, the Seahawks phenomenal young receiver who broke out this year with 119 catches and a league-leading 1,793 yards.

“He’s like that with the receiver room. You can see it with the effect with a lot of our guys, like Jax, is obvious, but really the rest of our young receivers,” Macdonald said. “And that’s rippled all the way throughout the whole team, offense, defense, special teams, all three phases. He’s helped me.”

Smith-Njigba is a phenomenal talent who undoubtedly would have found his way to stardom on his own. But the presence of Kupp helped expedite Smith-Njigba’s development.

We see the results every Sunday. But the seeds are sown long before Smith-Njigba and the Seahawks step foot on the field.

“What Coop has brought to this team, in his words, is ‘process over results.’ And you know, it’s not about, the game is the game and we’re going to be ready for it, and I’m going to give it my all each and every single game,” Smith-Njigba said.  “For us, it’s about process, making sure we’re ready, making sure we know exactly where we need to be in the run game and pass game. And, you know, I think he’s brought that to me and the team, and it’s excelled for us.”

As inclined as Kupp is to impart that knowledge, it goes only as far as his teammates’ willingness to embrace it. To Kupp’s appreciation, he’s found a captive audience in Seattle.

“It’s really cool to be around people who are open to want to learn and want to be better,” Kupp said. “And for me, I just want to be an open book. I know I’ve played a lot of football. And so to be around guys who are intrinsically motivated, that want to be better, that know there’s more out there for them, that’s something that’s special to be a part of.”

It’s something he handles with care.

“You don’t take that lightly, being able to speak into someone’s life, and they are asking you to. There’s something about the weight and the responsibility you feel being able to model those things. Knowing that I’m not going to speak over you and speak to you about what I think’s best for you and not try to model that myself. So I’ve taken that very seriously.”