LION IN WAIT Their Kupp runneth over
Stafford has pounced on opportunity with Rams after years of futility in Detroit
Matthew Stafford is like the grandfather who starts imparting life lessons by saying “back in my day…”
Here is what one of Stafford’s Rams teammates drafted five years year ago — newly crowned NFL Offensive Player of the Year Cooper Kupp, for example — has experienced: Five straight winning seasons, three division titles, six playoff wins and a soon-to-be second Super Bowl appearance, though he was injured for the first.
Here is what Stafford’s first 12 NFL seasons (all with the Lions) amounted to: Four winning seasons, zero division titles and zero playoff wins. In other words, the quarterback is there to remind anyone who might think otherwise that this run to Super Bowl LVI should not be taken for granted.
“I probably bring a little bit of a unique perspective when it comes to that kind of stuff just because of the success they’ve had here in the recent past,” Stafford said. “I obviously didn’t have that at the beginning of my career, but it’s made me the player that I am and the teammate that I am. I definitely am appreciative for the opportunity, know that they are few and far between, and tough to come by.”
Acquired as the missing piece to a championship in a bold offseason trade with the Lions, Stafford, who celebrated his 34th birthday Monday at home, will lead the Rams against Joe Burrow’s Bengals. Stafford’s journey from the NFL draft to his Super Bowl debut is the longest ever for a quarterback selected No. 1 overall (2009) who eventually reached the big game, while Burrow’s is the shortest (2020).
“I pinch myself sometimes thinking about the opportunity I’m getting,” Stafford said. “I came here for a new beginning, a new opportunity to play football with a great team. Just because I came here doesn’t mean we were going to get to this point.”
Stafford’s journey to the NFC champions started with a trade request and was bolstered when the Lions hired general manager Brad Holmes away from his role as Rams scouting director. He was at the same vacation resort in Mexico as Rams coach Sean McVay, 35, when the trade was agreed upon.
“It’s probably unlike any other collaboration I’ve had with a coach,” Stafford said, citing a mutual respect and their age similarity. “Do we see eye-to-eye every single second of the day? Absolutely not. Do we work together to make sure we’re doing what’s best for our team? Absolutely. Do we disagree in-game, do we disagree on the sideline, do we disagree in practice? Yeah, but that’s part of what makes this so special.”
Stafford has completed 72 percent of his passes with six touchdowns, one interception and a 115.6 quarterback rating in the three playoff wins, highlighted by his 44-yard throw to set up the walk-off field goal against the Buccaneers.
“Matthew has played his best ball as of late in those biggest moments,” McVay said. “We’ve seen our offense play great in the moments they had to play great. Matthew has led the way.”
Stafford is the second “franchise quarterback” to leave his longtime team and take another to the Super Bowl in as many years. That’s where the similarities end with Tom Brady, who won six Super Bowls with the Patriots before adding a seventh after signing with the Buccaneers in free agency.
“I definitely did not think about what Tom had done — our times with our drafted teams were a little bit different,” Stafford quipped.
“He won a bunch of Super Bowls. I was unable to win a playoff game at that point. I was thinking inside out about what was going to be best for me, what was going to be best for the Lions.”
If Stafford wins a Super Bowl, how many others will begin to exercise their muscle rather than risk rotting away? The Packers’ Aaron Rodgers, Seahawks’ Russell Wilson and Texans’ Deshaun Watson (legal issues pending) all have expressed interest in trades. More could be coming.
“As far as other guys doing it, I have no idea,” Stafford said. “Every situation is unique in this league. For me, it happened to work out well.”
That’s for sure.
IT is only right that Cooper Kupp gets back to the Super Bowl, only right that Craig and Karin Kupp get to watch their son play in one.
Cooper Kupp wasn’t one of the two best wide receivers in the NFL three years ago when a torn ACL left him an anguished sideline Super Bowl LIII spectator for the Rams’ 13-3 loss to the Patriots. He is now.
Craig and Karin Kupp didn’t make the trip to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta for Super Bowl LIII. They will be making this one from Yakima, Wash., to SoFi Stadium for Super Bowl LVI.
“We just told Coop that you’re gonna be back there, and we’ll go when you’re playing,” Craig Kupp told The Post.
The football gods were just enough to deliver Matthew Stafford to Cooper Kupp and the Rams, and on Super Sunday, watch the Kupps runneth over with pride.
“I think for our family, this is much more exciting for Coop being able to participate,” Craig Kupp said.
You see, these Super dreams also belong to the parent or parents who watched how it all started for their boy.
“A real skinny kid,” Karin Kupp recalls, and laughs as Craig laughs along with her. “Who was a lot smaller than everyone else. But in his mind, he was the best football player out there, not in an arrogant way at all. But in his mind, he was the best football player out there.”
The skinny little boy with the big dreams was 9.
“His dream was to play for USC or Stanford,” Craig Kupp said. “And then when eighth grade started coming around, that’s where his mind expanded and where that drive to be a pro football player and to be a Hall of Famer, that type of mentality and those kinda thoughts developed around that age.”
Just look at him now: 6-foot-2, 208-pound machine, a rare package of athleticism and brains and savvy and relentless competitiveness who won’t soon forget being forced to prove everyone who overlooked him wrong at Eastern Washington.
“Missing that Super Bowl, that’s one of the hardest things I’ve been through,” Cooper Kupp said. “The conflict it creates in you when you are both cheering and pulling for your guys ... but you know that every step of the way, every time they do succeed, it just hurts you that much more because you want to be a part of it as well. And so it’s just that conflict within you that’s both equally wanting them to succeed and do it, but also wanting to be there and knowing that you can’t be a part of it, like you want to at least.
He became the first player in 16 years and fourth overall to capture the receiving triple crown: 145 receptions, 1,947 yards, 16 TDs. He joined an elite club that features Jerry Rice (1990), Sterling Sharpe (1992) and Steve Smith (2005). He nearly toppled Calvin Johnson’s single-season record (1,964 yards).
Some are never the same after they tear an ACL.
“At no point was there any doubt in my mind that I was gonna come back and be better than I was before,” said Cooper, who wears No. 10 and he is The Perfect 10. “I felt like I had been given an opportunity now to rebuild myself exactly how I wanted to. I could teach myself to run the way that I wanted to run. I could run routes the way I wanted to run routes, I could cut the way that I wanted to cut, eliminate any bad habits and be able to move into a place where all that stuff is as efficiently and dialed in as I possibly make it.”
There are many more layers to his greatness. He makes every route look the same for starters. He loves watching film with Matthew Stafford. He has an unwavering faith. Adversity doesn’t make him blink.
“Perseverance is an incredible trait to have,” Cooper said. “Having perseverance in this world I think’ll get you a long ways.”
Craig and Karin met at Pacific Lutheran University. He was a 6-foot-4 quarterback. She was an All-American soccer captain. They were engaged in 1990, right after Craig was drafted by the Giants in the fifth round, cut before the season started, and married in March 1991.
Craig played in one NFL game, with the Phoenix Cardinals, was briefly a backup in 1991 to Steve Beuerlein in Dallas when Troy Aikman suffered a knee injury before he was allocated to the World League of American Football. His NFL dream was nearing the end of his 12-year NFL career as a Saint — ended in regret in 1992.
All these years later, he experiences watching his 28-year-old son play in the Super Bowl.
“My parents have just been amazing in terms of their support for me throughout my entire life,” Cooper said.
This game day will be no different in one regard: “I send him a real simple text in the morning,” Craig said. “let him know I love him. Want to make sure his mind’s keeping football fun, that’s when he’s at his best.”
Not to worry — Cooper Kupp always is.