New Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp met with the media after signing on Tuesday and talked about joining the team he grew up rooting for as a kid in Yakima.
The first time Cooper Kupp attended a Seahawks game, he was a 13-year-old fan watching from the upper deck as the Seahawks came back to beat the Packers on a Monday night snow game in 2006.
Five years later, not long before he'd begin a record-setting career at Eastern Washington, the Yakima native attended his second game, watching the Seahawks beat the Ravens in 2011. And before that game, sitting with his father, Craig, himself a former NFL player, Cooper Kupp allowed himself to envision an NFL career.
"We watched when Baltimore came to town, and I was able to be right next to the tunnel as Ray Lewis ran out, and my dad tapped me and was like, 'Hey, do you think you can play in the NFL?'' Kupp said Tuesday after signing with the Seahawks. "I looked at Ray Lewis, and I was like, 'Oh, yeah, I can play. I got this.'"
Kupp showed, over an impressive eight-year career with the Los Angeles Rams, that he indeed has what it takes to hang in the NFL. And now, more than a decade after he looked at a Hall of Fame linebacker and declared that he had an NFL future ahead of him, and nearly 20 years after his first Seahawks game as a fan, Kupp is ready to suit up for the Seahawks as he begins the next chapter of his NFL career playing for the team he rooted for as a child.
"It's a really cool thing," Kupp said of returning to his home state to continue his NFL career. "Obviously growing up in Yakima, watching the Seattle Seahawks growing up, I've talked a lot about the memories and experiences. That's kind of what football is. It's remembering all those big moments. Walking through the halls back here, looking at these photos of iconic (players)—just moments in games, and being able to recognize, man, 'I remember where I was when that happened, when that moment happened.' Growing up watching Seattle, watching football being a huge part of my life and then playing at Eastern Washington, it's a full-circle moment coming back and being able to throw on a Seattle Seahawks uniform, it's a really cool thing. It's something I don't take lightly. Just really excited to be able to be a part of this program and what this program has been about and continue it moving forward."
Over the first eight years of his career with the Rams, Kupp proved that a slow, at least by NFL Scouting Combine 40-yard-dash standards, receiver from an NCAA FCS program could play at an elite level in the NFL, compiling 634 catches, 7,776 yards and 57 touchdowns, as well as first-team All-Pro, Pro Bowl and AP Offensive Player of the Year honors, not to mention a Super Bowl MVP award. Kupp was established as a Rams great, and thought he would finish his career there, but as is so often the case in the NFL, the business side of the game caught up with him, and the Rams released him last week, making him into a highly-coveted free agent.
Kupp wasn't expecting to start a new chapter of his career after enjoying so much success in Los Angeles, but he and his wife, Anna, who is from the Tri-Cities, are looking forward to what comes next as they and their three boys make the Seattle area home.
"In all honesty, it's been very difficult and frustrating and there's been lots of questions," Kupp said of being released by the Rams. "It's a real tough situation. I've said, I've always imagined that I'd finish my career there, but that's not what the plan was that God had for me and my family. Stepping into this new adventure, this new place, this new chapter in my career, but also in our lives as my wife and I navigate moving back up home, back up to our home state, I think that's something that we're excited about facing. We're excited about the community that we get to be a part of, the people that are going to be a part of our lives. But yeah, it has been difficult. Without a doubt, it has been difficult, and we're humans, we're real people. I'm thankful to have had a wife to lean on and to count on to be able to walk through this with because it would be very hard to do by myself, and our boys have been incredible through it all. But yeah, we are very excited about what the future holds here in Seattle."
Once Kupp became a free agent, he recognized that Seattle was a good fit for him, not just because of his and Anna's connections to the state, but also because of the vision for the franchise laid out for him by Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald and general manager and president of football operations John Schneider.
"As we went through things, I thought that the messaging from Mike and from John, from (offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak), all the guys I talked to here, the messaging was right on par with what I thought was how you build a championship team. It's about the people. You focus on bringing good people that are about ball, and all the other stuff is going to fall in place. That's something that, when that was the mindset, when it wasn't about specific football—like people, football people that you try and get in place, we're trying to get just the people, we're trying to get solid people that know how to work, that are about playing this game the right way. That's something that I was like, man, this is something that I know that that's how you build a good team. I know the best teams I've been a part of have been built that way. So that excited me.
"As time went on, talking to Ernest Jones who's been here who I've known, talking to Jaxon (Smith-Njigba), talking with Sam (Darnold) after he had signed on and various guys in the organization, just like, hey, there's the messaging every time; it's like, hey, we're building something here that's special and we've got the right people in the building to do it. It just built up, and now I'm really excited to be a part of it."
Of course, signing with the Seahawks means Kupp will stay in the NFC West and face his former team twice a year, and while getting a chance to face the Rams wasn't a motivating factor in his free agency, he will look forward to seeing coaches and former teammates with whom he built a strong connection with during his time in L.A.
"Yeah, I am looking forward to it," he said. "That didn't play into the decision to come here, but it's a nice little thing on the side to be able to go against those guys and know a lot of those guys, so much respect for the coaching staff, the way they handle things down there, the players down there. I am excited about it, though. It's going to be a really cool thing. When that time comes, it will just be football at that point. But I am looking forward to it."
With an ascending defense and a revamped offense led by Kubiak and new quarterback Sam Darnold, there's a lot for Kupp to like about the direction of the team he is joining, but when he talked to former teammates like Jones, and to new teammates like Jaxon Smith-Njigba, what sold Kupp most on coming to Seattle was the type of people he would be working with and what that can mean to a football team.
"It all went back to the people," Kupp said. "Ernest talked a lot about how when he came in here, just the way he was welcomed in and the way the guys went to work, the communication they had, the way that they operated as one on defense, and that's a huge thing defensively. Defenses only work if you're playing as one unit. He just had incredible things to say about his time here last year with the guys. Then Jaxon, he said a lot of the same stuff. He just loved the coaching staff. He loved the way the guys were treated, the way the organization was run, and he said he's just having the time of his life playing football. You're like, that's a huge thing. If guys are having fun, you're going to be at your best when you're enjoying it, and if you can create that environment and to still be here, all these guys are going to go to work, good things will happen."
