Cooper Kupp trade idea by Florio lacks common sense, cap knowledge

Mike Florio wants you to read PFT, so he’ll throw anything at the wall

If Les Snead gets a team to agree to trade for Cooper Kupp’s $20 million owed this year, it will be the highlight of his career as Rams general manager. But ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio isn’t concerned with realism if it allows him to write the headline, “Rams kick door open to potential Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp trades”.

Don’t worry, I read it so you don’t have to.

As to the possibility of trading Kupp or re-doing his deal, it was this: “[W]e hadn’t talked to him first so I wouldn’t do it here. Cooper and all these players that are at the end — macro level, we’re talking about a subset of players, not just Matthew and Cooper, that are coming to the end of their career and their contracts, they still have contracts with Rams. Do you keep going forward with that same contract? Do you restructure it in some way? For many reasons, those are all issues we really have to sit down and talk through. We haven’t done it yet.”

Even if you read that as Snead saying the team will trade Cooper Kupp if the right offer comes along, Florio makes sure to ignore the logistics of a deal so that he can make fans believe that there’s a chance it could happen.

By no means does it appear that a team will trade for the rights to pay a 32-year-old receiver $20 million when he just ranked 49th in receiving yards and has missed significant action in three straight seasons.

The Rams will either release Kupp or the receiver will agree to give money back so that he can stay on the team. Because players rarely give back money — even if Kupp doesn’t attract more on the open market, an “open market” at least implies that he could negotiate for more — there’s a 95% chance that Snead will just release Kupp before his $7.5 million roster bonus is due on March 19th.

He won’t pay him that roster bonus or his $12.5 million base salary.

That’s $20 million cash for a player who is more likely to make $10 million as a free agent, if he’s lucky.

Cooper Kupp free agent comparisons

If we look at some recent players of Kupp’s caliber and age, we find example after example of why NFL teams do not want 32-year-old receivers anymore — a trend I started writing about over three years ago.

Stefon Diggs, Texans

The Texans traded for Diggs and re-did the $22 million he was owed so that it would be spread out over five years. Mistake! Diggs was 94th in receiving yards in 2024.

Keenan Allen, Bears

The Bears took on the last year of Allen’s four-year, $80 million contract and he delivered 744 yards, his lowest total since he was injured in 2016.

DeAndre Hopkins, Chiefs

Has there even been a star receiver on a championship team with less of a profile than Hopkins? The 32-year-old might go to his first Super Bowl this weekend, but he didn’t do much to help Kansas City’s cause. Hopkins averaged 43 yards per game and didn’t catch a pass in the win over Houston last week.

Tyler Lockett, Seahawks

Lockett was the least valuable starting outside wide receiver in the NFL in 2024, but he made $12 million after taking a pay cut.

Amari Cooper, Bills

I was wrong, there is a star receiver playing this week who is more anonymous than Hopkins. Cooper, 30, averaged 37 yards per game after getting to Buffalo.

How Cooper Kupp would be viewed on the free agent market is very simple: He would get an opportunity to compete for a starting role on team, but the general feeling of such a contract would be…

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Teams do not trade for $20 million to hope for the best and prepare for the worst, especially at the position that has delivered the most bargains through the draft in recent years.

Couldn’t the Rams pay his bonus, then trade him?

Of course, a team “could do” anything. But there are two reasons this won’t happen:

• The Rams don’t want to pay $7.5 million to trade a player for a fourth round pick (at best)
• The Rams still won’t know if anyone wants to pay Kupp the $12.5 million he’d be owed

Mike Williams signed a one-year, $10 million contract with the Jets after he was released by the Chargers. Williams also has an injury history, but he’s two years younger than Kupp and the Jets paid him $10 million — $2.5 million less than Kupp’s base salary. What a huge mistake that was: Williams averaged 18 yards per game and was let go, joining the Steelers. In Pittsburgh, Williams averaged 14 yards per game.

Teams — including the Rams — do not want Cooper Kupp at this stage of his career unless it is for a low base salary and guarantee. Yeah, a lot of teams don’t learn from the mistakes of others, but it is not as though his Triple Crown season was a year ago. That was 2021 and he hasn’t had a healthy year since then. Kupp will find a job, but he won’t find a job that pays him $20 million for one year. The Texans did that with Diggs — right after he had 107 catches for 1,183 yards and 8 TDs — and they will regret that move.

The Bears will regret renting Allen, even if it only cost them a fourth round pick.

Mike Florio wants you to believe different because it’s more salacious than the truth. Snead, whether he’s posturing as if the Rams can trade Kupp or not (because it suits him to pretend that he can), knows that is the truth too.