After failing to find a trade partner, the Los Angeles Rams released Cooper Kupp in early March. The veteran wide receiver made it known he wanted to find his new home quickly. It only took a couple of days for Kupp to land, signing a three-year, $45 million deal with the Seattle Seahawks.
With the Seahawks undergoing several changes to their offense this year, how does the Kupp signing impact the team from a fantasy football perspective?
Fantasy Impact of Cooper Kupp Signing With the Seahawks
The 2025 Seahawks are going to look very different than the 2024 version. In addition to having a new offensive coordinator, the trio of Geno Smith, DK Metcalf, and Tyler Lockett are all no longer on the team.
The running game will be the same with Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet. But other than that, the only main returning piece is Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Until now, the Seahawks WR room was looking mighty shallow, with Jake Bobo slated to be the WR2 (which was never going to happen). The Seahawks still need a WR3, but we can safely pencil in Kupp as the WR2 opposite Smith-Njigba.
For the entirety of his tenure as the Seahawks starting QB, Smith supported two fantasy relevant wide receivers in Metcalf and Lockett, and then, in 2024, Metcalf and JSN.
Last year, Sam Darnold supported two relevant WRs in Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison. Both of these facts suggest the Seahawks have room for another impact fantasy receiver beyond JSN. However, that doesn’t mean there necessarily will be one.
Kupp owns the greatest fantasy season from a wide receiver in the history of football. No one can ever take that away from him. But it’s now been four years since Kupp caught 145 passes for 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns, averaging 25.9 fantasy points per game.
Last year, Kupp rebounded from a dismal 2023 campaign to average 14.6 ppg (ticking up from 13.7 ppg). On the surface, it may look like Kupp, while obviously not an elite WR1, is still a solid WR2. Digging deeper, it’s very hard to overlook the underlying metrics, as well as what we saw over the final month and change of the 2024 season.
Including two playoff games, Kupp’s final five fantasy totals were: 0.0, 5.4, 3.9, 3.9, and 11.1. From Weeks 15-19 (four games played), Kupp never saw more than three targets in a game. If Kupp still had something left in the tank, why didn’t the Rams throw him the ball in their most important games?
Unfortunately, Kupp’s ability to get open has deteriorated ever since his historic season.
this is not good
Cooper Kupp's rank in ability to get "open"
2021: #15 of 160
2022: #71 of 150
2023: #102 of 153
2024: #141 of 159per ESPN's player tracking data pic.twitter.com/SSmQ4NT9TY
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) March 13, 2025
Last year, Kupp’s red zone target rate dipped from 31% in 2023 to 20.4%.
In 2021, Kupp averaged 3.21 yards per route run, one of the best metrics for identifying player talent. That fell to a still very good 2.41 in 2022. The last two years? 1.87 and 1.99.
Now 32 years old, Kupp gets a downgrade in quarterback and overall offensive philosophy. He will have to learn a new offense on a team with a new offensive coordinator. It’s very hard to get excited about Kupp’s fantasy prospects this year.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba
Kupp is absolutely no threat to Smith-Njigba’s WR1 status. However, that doesn’t mean Kupp’s mere presence doesn’t impact JSN. It does.
While Kupp may not steal targets from JSN (there are plenty to go around), he could end up negative affecting Smith-Njigba’s slot rate.
Last season, JSN led the NFL in slot snaps. He ran 74.3% of his routes from the slot. Kupp is not a pure slot receiver, but we often see aging wide receivers move the slot when they can’t win on the outside anymore. Kupp spent 56.9% of his time running routes from the slot, his highest rate of the past four seasons.
It’s possible JSN was going to line up out wide more anyway with the departures of Metcalf and Lockett. But for fantasy purposes, we want JSN in the slot.
With that said, JSN saw a 24.1% target share last season sharing a field with Metcalf and Lockett. As the clear WR1, that number should increase. He was also only targeted on 22.2% of his routes run. That should push 30%. He should also score more than six times.
JSN averaged 14.9 ppg last season, finishing as the WR17. I remain confident he will enter the top 12 this season. In a best case scenario, we get overwhelmingly positive training camp hype on Kupp (kind of like we did when Allen Robinson signed with the Rams in 2022), and that gets us a better price on JSN in 2025 fantasy drafts.
Sam Darnold
Darnold, in what would undoubtedly have been his last opportunity to prove he could be a starting NFL quarterback, could not possibly have capitalized on the situation more. Darnold threw for 4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns, leading the Vikings to a 14-3 record and a playoff appearance.
Not only that, Darnold went from free agent fodder to fantasy QB1, averaging a career-best 18.8 fantasy points per game. He posted nine games of 20+ fantasy points.
Obviously, going from Jefferson and Addison to JSN and Kupp is a downgrade. But it’s not so significant that Darnold can’t be a relevant fantasy option. While he won’t be drafted as a QB1, Darnold projects as a high QB2 who will spend plenty of time as a recommended streamer.