The reigning Super Bowl champions, the Los Angeles Rams, have had a rough start to the season after wide receiver Cooper Kupp injured his ankle in the fourth quarter of the team’s 21-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals in Week 11. According to the most recent Rams news, his injury is quite serious.
What happened to Cooper Kupp?
The Super Bowl MVP landed awkwardly while attempting to catch a high pass from backup quarterback John Wolford last day, with 14:18 remaining and the Rams trailing 17-10. Kupp remained on the sideline and was attended to by trainers before hopping to the bench, his leg unweighted. He was able to walk back to the locker room with 12:44 remaining and did not return.
Coach Sean McVay didn’t elaborate on Kupp’s injury in his postgame remarks, but he didn’t sound optimistic for the future. He said: “I just know it didn’t look good, it didn’t sound good.”
The 29-year-injury old’s is the latest setback to the Rams’ playoff hopes, as the team is now 3-6 overall and needs to win three of its next eight games to maintain its title defense.
Copper Kupp had three catches for minus-1 yard after leading the NFL in receptions, yards receiving, and touchdown catches last season. He leads the team this season with 75 receptions for 812 yards and six touchdowns.
The Rams were concerned about Kupp after their second home game in a row. He avoided serious injury when he rolled his ankle late in the 31-14 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on October 30.
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The Rams have finished three games under.500 for the first time in McVay’s six seasons. It was also the Rams’ fifth game in a row in which they failed to score more than 17 points, including each game of their current three-game losing streak. Los Angeles last won an NFL game nearly a month ago, defeating the 1-5 Carolina Panthers 10-24.
Matthew Stafford did not play on Sunday due to a failure to clear NFL concussion protocols. Wolford took his place, but he looked rusty behind a shaky offensive line, getting sacked three times and throwing an interception.
To make matters worse, the Rams’ offense managed only 256 yards, their third game in a row and fifth of the season.
McVay said: “Whatever that means in terms of the results, we just have to be able to have a better product out there, start to see some improvement, and that’s the challenging thing is there really hasn’t been examples of that occurring, and so got to be able to look at some of the things that we’re doing process-wise.”
“I got to be able to look at myself in the mirror and figure out what are those things, cause I feel very responsible for us being in this position.”
The Rams’ next opponent will be the Saints, whose playoff hopes are also on life support with a 3-7 record. The Rams’ performance should improve in the near future.
