Los Angeles Rams 2022 Autopsy: Cooper Kupp’s Injury Effectively Ends Disappointing Season

After investing multiple first-round picks for Matthew Stafford, the Rams are on the verge of moving on from him, something that may be wise given the elbow injury that cropped up in the offseason. On top of that, their top receiver won’t be available for at least a month.

Kupp had already been having a somewhat down season – after finishing 2021 as the top receiver by a number of metrics, including yards per route run, ESPN’s new receiver metric or PFF grades, Kupp now ranks outside of the top five in two of those metrics and 27th in ESPN’s metric.

More importantly, the rest of the Rams receiver group was already struggling to provide Kupp and Stafford with the supplementary support both need and now will have to deal with defenses no longer keying in on Kupp.

With Stafford and the running game playing as they were, the only chance the offense stood to keep pace with opponents was with Kupp on the field.

There have been swirling retirement rumors for Stafford, Donald, and McVay, and there are no clear replacements for any of them. McVay has been such a successful coach that he regularly sees his coaching staff poached by other teams, the consequence of which is a lack of experience on the offensive side of the coaching roster.

Donald is irreplaceable, and the Rams won’t have any draft selections to replace Stafford at quarterback. The Rams took out a loan to buy a Super Bowl ring, and the debtors have come knocking.