They learned nothing from the Cooper Kupp contract

As Terry McLaurin waits for a new contract in Washington, memories of overpaid, over-30 Cooper Kupp creep in

We all saw the Los Angeles Rams make a huge financial misstep with Cooper Kupp’s contract in 2022. Based on arguments being made for the Washington Commanders to pay 30-year-old receiver Terry McLaurin “whatever he wants to make him happy” as he threatens to hold out for a new contract, it appears that many of us learn nothing from past mistakes.

When will we finally learn that today’s NFL stars are often not tomorrow’s best players? Especially when those players want to take up over 10% of the team’s salary cap?

Terry McLaurin is a good player and probably an even better teammate and member of the community. So was Kupp. Actually, Kupp was a better player — albeit more injury prone — and significantly younger than McLaurin when the Rams ripped up his previous contract and paid him a 3-year, $80 million deal as a “thank you” for winning the Super Bowl.

That deal ended up paying Kupp roughly $70 million for the worst seasons of his career. Now they want to see if McLaurin’s can be even worse.

It is not disrespectful to say that wide receivers hit a wall somewhere between age 29 and 31, and more likely to be on the younger side than in his 30s. It is merely what mountains of evidence tells us we should expect to happen.

No receiver is immune to the 30-year-old fall off — NONE

Although Jerry Rice was exceptional in his early 30s, including a career-high 1,848 yards at age 33, it is worth noting that his yards per catch average that season was 15.1.

Rice would have been worth any contract in 1995, that’s true. But we also know that he wasn’t the same player who averaged 18.4 yards per catch from ages 23-27.

Just like Larry Fitzgerald, another receiver who proved to have rare longevity at the position, Rice’s usage and style had to change as he got closer to and over age 29. Fitzgerald went from your classic number one outside weapon in his first 7-8 seasons to a possession slot weapon when he turned 29.

That’s fine. Fitzgerald and Rice both had Pro Bowl caliber seasons that helped their teams make deep playoff runs later in their careers as possession receivers. But possession receivers have never made as much money as rare athletic outside deep threats and that will always be true.

Kupp’s longevity value was always tied to the fact that he was already a “possession” slot receiver when he won Offensive Player of the Year in 2021.

But even then, we’ve seen Kupp’s yards per catch average fall from 12.7 yards per catch in his first five NFL seasons to 11.2 in the past three. As a 30-year-old, Kupp’s per game average has fallen from 79.1 in his 20s to 60 yards per game in his 30s.

That’s impacted by Puka Nacua’s presence as the better receiver, which also goes to show that smart teams lean on rookie contract receivers to carry them in the passing game. Even if most fifth round picks do not play like Nacua, or close to it, it may actually be easier to get net positive value from a receiver who makes $1 million per year than one who wants $30 million per year.

Terry McLaurin isn’t threatening to hold out because he’s frustrated.

McLaurin, like T.J. Watt and Trey Hendrickson, is holding out because he’s scared.

Davante Adams knows

Rams fans need not look any further than Puka’s new teammate to see a player who also hit the drop-off at 30, which was the first year of a contract extension paid by the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022. That deal paid Adams $140 million over five seasons, but was heavily backloaded.

Even so, the Raiders paid Adams $50 million for 2.25 seasons in Las Vegas and Adams didn’t make any of his quarterbacks there (of which there were four different starters in that short period of time) better.

The Raiders had to trade Adams to the Jets for nothing, pay off whatever they owed him, and he was released from that contract because he’s gone from a dominant threat at 15 yards per catch to someone averaging 11.7 in the past two years.

Before turning 31, Adams was called the best receiver in the NFL. Two years later, Adams signed a two-year, $44 million contract with the Rams, including $26 million guaranteed. And even that is exceptionally good for a 32-year-old.

But if Adams has 700 yards in 2025 and is released in 2026, will anyone act surprised?

When players like McLaurin ask to be paid like the top-paid receivers in the NFL, the worst thing you can do is look at Terry McLaurin’s past numbers. In fact, where you want to look is similar receivers at similar ages and calculate:

“What is McLaurin likely to do during his contract years?”

Instead when it came to Kupp, the Rams asked:

“What should we do to reward Cooper Kupp for his past accomplishments?”

Well that sounds very nice, but as we’ve learned it is TERRIBLE for business. $70 million for an oft-injured, slower, less reliable receiver who plays a position that often has replacement options on day two of the draft for 1/30th of the cost.

Even McLaurin can attest to being a third round rookie who instantly became the number one receiver for the Washington Commanders in 2019. After years of getting nowhere with older “established stars” like Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson, the Commanders finally got good value with McLaurin.

To pay him now may be a “thank you” for those seasons, but nowhere in the NFL’s business model does it say that showing gratitude that financially harms your future is a necessity. Fans and experts want to criticize teams for not paying 30 year olds, and then criticize them again when they’re being released at 31 or 32.

What are 30-year-old receivers actually worth?

So breaking down McLaurin as an example, here is what the Commanders would pay him per season if they extended him to the same contract that Brandon Aiyuk received from the 49ers (4 years/$120 million) in 2024:

• 2026 (age 31): $9.9 million
• 2027 (age 32): $15.4 million
• 2028 (age 33): $41.5 million ($21.2 million dead money)
• 2029 (age 34): $43.3 million ($13 million dead money)
• 2030 (age 35): $14.5 million cap hit void year (McLaurin not on team anymore)

Although the Commanders would only page $25 million for the first two seasons of the deal — but again, very few receivers in NFL history have been good at age 32 — they’re also paying another $60 million for ages 33, 34, and 35 even if they release him!

The “it’s not my money” argument doesn’t really hold up when you consider that $15-$20 million in a given cap year could be the cost of a top tier starting linebacker or cornerback or left guard. Teams are potentially preventing themselves from adding or keeping such players because they want to reward a receiver for what he did in his 20s.

Look at the financial hell that the L.A. Rams went through in 2022, 2023, and 2024. They’re still paying the cost of new over-age 30 contracts paid to Kupp and Aaron Donald after winning the Super Bowl. Deals they had no obligation to make for stars that had multiple years left on their previous contracts.

Even if you change my four-year $120 million proposal to a three-year, $90 million contract, it’s not going to change the math that much other than making McLaurin MORE expensive in 2026, 2027, and 2028.

It’s hard to believe that so many people are still having a hard time calculating the mistake that paying someone like McLaurin (or even T.J. Watt) at this age would be — they want the most money they’ve ever made for their WORST seasons — but then again the media and the players do an excellent job of making you feel guilty for thinking that a player “should not be paid what he wants”.

And yet, that’s just the truth if you’re going to do smart business in the NFL. McLaurin should not be paid what he wants.

It doesn’t matter if we have 10 years of history to go off of or 100 years, fans and even many NFL “experts” and general managers just can’t seem to shake the belief that yesterday’s stars must also be next year’s stars. Once you turn 30 in the NFL, unless you are a quarterback, you may not even be today’s stars.