Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp is putting up numbers to start this season like the NFL hasn’t seen in decades.
Kupp leads the NFL with 924 receiving yards and 10 touchdown catches this season. And he’s the first receiver with 76 yards on Sunday night, he’ll become the first receiver with 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns in his team’s first nine games of the season since Jerry Rice in 1990.
Although NFL passing numbers have skyrocketed in recent years, that has come more from quarterbacks spreading the ball around to multiple receivers than from individual receivers putting up huge numbers. It’s telling that besides Rice, the receivers who previously had 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns through their team’s first nine games were Don Hutson in 1942, Raymond Berry in 1951 and Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch in 1960.
Rice, Hutson, Berry and Hirsch were all Hall of Fame receivers. The 28-year-old Kupp hasn’t had that kind of career yet, but since the arrival of Matthew Stafford in Los Angeles, no receiver has produced more than Kupp.
