Cooper Kupp

Where He's Expected to Land

Nova projects roughly 131 points across a 17-game season, about 7.7 per game, a Tier 7, WR37-to-WR94 finish range on a full PPR board. That's essentially replacement-level: the median outcome is a bench stash who occasionally starts in deeper leagues, not a weekly lineup piece. The per-game distribution backs that up almost exactly: 47% bust weeks (under 10 PPR points), 42% solid weeks (10-20), and just 11% boom weeks (over 20). His DNA grade is H, high week-to-week variance, which tracks for a route-runner who now depends on scheme and matchup rather than target volume to hit spike weeks.

The Last Three Seasons

(Source for 2025 PPR finish and PPG: Hayden Epinette, RotoBaller, June 11, 2026; counting stats via Pro Football Reference.)

The trend line is unambiguous: three straight seasons of at least five missed games from 2022 through 2024, then a 2025 debut in Seattle where he stayed healthy for 16 games but produced his worst per-catch and per-game output since his rookie year. Volume, not health, is now the limiting factor, 70 targets across 16 games is a WR4 workload wearing a WR2 name.

What Changed for Him This Offseason

Not much, and that's the point. Kupp is entering the second year of the three-year, $51 million deal he signed after the Rams released him in March 2025 (Los Angeles cut him March 12, 2025; Seattle signed him two days later). He turns 33 in his age-33 season, per RotoBaller, with no reported offseason procedure or contract restructure. The player is the same; what's changed is entirely external, the Seahawks spent the offseason adding competition above him on the depth chart rather than clearing a path for him.

What Changed Around Him

Seattle's passing-game pecking order tightened, not loosened. Jaxon Smith-Njigba won 2025 Offensive Player of the Year and posted an NFL-high 35.9% target share, he's the unquestioned WR1. The bigger threat to Kupp is Rashid Shaheed, acquired from New Orleans in a midseason 2025 trade and now entering his first full offseason in the building; Seattle's SI affiliate flatly projects him as the team's "explosive number two," pushing Kupp to the third read (Michael Hanich, SI/Seahawks On SI, July 9, 2026). Rookie WR Tory Horton, whose encouraging 2025 was cut short by a shin injury, is also expected back for camp and further crowds the room.

Coaching-wise, Klint Kubiak left to become the Raiders' head coach; Seattle promoted Brian Fleury, the 49ers' former run-game coordinator and tight ends coach, to offensive coordinator. Both come from the same Shanahan-tree, wide-zone lineage, so Sam Darnold and the passing concepts stay largely intact rather than resetting, head coach Mike Macdonald called it "this year's version of last year's offense" (Mike Macdonald, Seahawks.com, June 19, 2026). One relevant subtraction elsewhere on offense: Kenneth Walker III left in free agency for a three-year, $43.05 million deal with Kansas City, and lead back Zach Charbonnet is expected to miss the start of the season after tearing his ACL in the divisional round, none of that touches Kupp's target share directly, but it does mean Seattle's offense should still lean pass-heavy early, which at least keeps his floor from collapsing entirely.

What They're Saying

Smith-Njigba himself put Kupp's 2026 role in context without being asked to rank anyone: "It's always attacking, getting bigger, faster, stronger. That second year of growth with Sam and the team and playing off 'Shid (Rashid Shaheed) and Coop (Cooper Kupp), just evolving in that way" (Jaxon Smith-Njigba, via John Boyle, Seahawks.com, June 19, 2026), Kupp named third, after Shaheed, by his own teammate. RotoBaller was blunter in its outlook, writing that Kupp "is facing competition for his starting gig" from Smith-Njigba, Shaheed, and Horton, and that he's "a late-round option at best" this summer (Hayden Epinette, RotoBaller, June 11, 2026). SI's beat coverage frames him as Seattle's "third-best skilled position player on offense", a real role, just not a fantasy-relevant one most weeks (Michael Hanich, SI/Seahawks On SI, July 9, 2026). None of that contradicts Nova's number; if anything, the model's Tier 7 placement is the quantitative version of the same read the beat is giving in prose.

The Buzz

Fantasy content around Kupp right now isn't hype, it's hospice care. RotoBaller's dynasty desk has run multiple pieces this offseason questioning whether his value is fading and whether he still belongs on a roster at all (RotoBaller, spring/summer 2026). The redraft crowd has priced him as a WR82-range dart throw rather than a name anyone's targeting; there's no contrarian sleeper case being whispered about him anywhere in mainstream fantasy coverage. Buzz and Nova agree here, which is itself useful information: there's no hidden value to find.

Swing Factors

• Shaheed injury or slow integration (+35 pts): if Seattle's new WR2 needs time to round into form, some of that target share slides to Kupp early.
• Red-zone/short-area role (+20 pts): Kupp's remaining skill, winning underneath and moving the chains, still has value in an offense that should stay pass-competent; 26 first downs on just 47 catches in 2025 says the efficiency skill hasn't fully eroded.
• Further target erosion toward Horton (-25 pts): a healthy Horton training camp could push Kupp closer to true WR4/depth-chart afterthought than the WR3 he's currently penciled in as.
• Health, at 33 (±30 pts): he stayed on the field for all 16 games in 2025 after three straight seasons of missing time, that streak is one soft-tissue injury from ending, and Nova's H-grade DNA already prices in that volatility.

If Everything Goes Right / If Everything Goes Wrong

If everything goes right: Shaheed needs a few weeks to sync with Fleury's install, Darnold leans on Kupp's route-running in the short-to-intermediate game the way Seattle's beat writers describe, and he claws back to something like his 2024 form, a 90th-percentile season worth roughly 226 points, flirting with weekly-flex value in deeper leagues. Nova prices a tier-1-caliber season like that at 6%.

If everything goes wrong: Horton is healthy, Shaheed is immediately productive, and Kupp settles into the true third option in a run-funneled offense, a repeat of 2025's 593-yard floor or worse, bottoming out near the 50-point 10th-percentile mark. The 47% bust-week rate isn't a tail risk here; it's closer to the base case.

Nova's Edge

The edge isn't a contrarian call, it's confirming there isn't one to make. Nova's model, the beat-writer read, and the fantasy community's collective shrug all land in the same place: Kupp is a value only in the literal sense that pick 169 is a cheap price for a WR37-to-WR94 outcome range, not because anyone's sleeping on a bounce-back. The +20 rank-edge-vs-market score on Nova's report card reflects that modest gap between his 149 model rank and 169 ADP, not a hidden league-winner.

The Bottom Line

Kupp is a late-round, best-ball-only flier, round 14 or later in a 12-team draft, and only as your sixth or seventh receiver. He's droppable in-season the moment Seattle's target distribution confirms Shaheed as the true WR2, and he has zero standalone value in shallow redraft leagues. The gradeable claim: barring multiple Seahawks WR injuries, Cooper Kupp finishes 2026 outside the weekly fantasy-relevant range (WR40 or worse in PPR) more often than not.