The Los Angeles Rams are built around Cooper Kupp, Aaron Donald and Matthew Stafford right now. They’re the pillars of the team, as Les Snead put it, ranking among the best players at their respective positions.
Donald is a future Hall of Famer and Kupp had arguably the best season by any wide receiver in NFL history in 2021, which is exactly why both of them were ranked among the league’s most dominant players heading into the 2023 season.
The editors in the NFL Wire network voted on the NFL’s most dominant bunch, which had Kupp at No. 40 and Donald at No. 2. Had this been done in 2022, Kupp likely would’ve been much higher following his historic triple-crown season in 2021, while Donald would rank in the top five in any of the last eight years or so.
Here’s what Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire wrote about Kupp:
Injuries limited Kupp to just nine games last season, but when he was on the field, he continued his career arc as one of the most productive and efficient slot receivers in pro football history. Last season, on just 48 slot targets (he had a league-high 144 targets in 2021), Kupp caught 41 passes for 469 yards and three touchdowns. If he’s in every game this upcoming season, expect Kupp to dominate from the slot as he always has. — Doug Farrar, Touchdown Wire
And this is what he wrote about Donald, also noting how an injury hampered the future Hall of Famer.
Injuries robbed Donald of his last six games of the 2022 season, but the best defensive player of his era was as productive as he could possibly be with those limited reps – in just 396 pass-rushing snaps, he totaled five sacks, seven quarterback hits, and 28 quarterback hurries. Not bad for a guy who’s been double-teamed as the default mechanism throughout his career. — Doug Farrar, Touchdown Wire
Kupp and Donald, along with Stafford, will have to carry the Rams in 2023 if they’re going to make any sort of push toward the playoffs. They’re more than capable of doing that, but they’ll need to be more like the 2021 versions of themselves than the play we saw last season.
