Turf Show Times
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.
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...
