Cooper Kupp made an appearance at Rams OTAs on Tuesday, the first time this offseason that he’s gone through a full day of work despite not taking part in all drills with the team. That’s partly because of his ongoing ankle rehab, as well as the fact that he was back home awaiting the birth of his child.
The Rams are taking it slow with Kupp as he continues to recover from an ankle injury suffered last season, limiting his participation in practice up to this point. At some point, he’ll be cut loose, likely during training camp next month.
Kupp said Tuesday that he’s “feeling really good,” which is music to fans’ ears. But in Kupp’s mind, he expected to be back much sooner. He even hoped to make his way back onto the field at some point last season, which ultimately didn’t happen.
“Let’s just be real, this is not the timeline that we expected this to be,” Kupp said. “I was really hoping to make it something where we could challenge to come back and be a part of last year still. That’s kind of the point of the surgery, is to try to get back quicker and unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way. The way that rehab goes, it feels like you kind of hit this point where you’re in the middle of the season, rehab starts and we’re kind of still going through it. Honestly, I’m feeling really good now. There’s a lot of things that go on with having a baby, things out here with OTAs, and just in terms of how you want to approach that. But honestly, feeling really good. But yeah, for your question, it does feel like when you get hurt, that season kind of just drags on forever. There’s never really a stopping point where you leave the facility because I’m in here still rehabbing, doing all that stuff, so it does get long. But man, if you love football, it doesn’t really matter.”
Kupp hasn’t fully been cleared to participate 100% yet, but he’s working his way to that point. He’s itching to be fully cleared, too, knowing that’ll be the time he can really start running and cutting without hesitation.
For now, he’s testing his ankle and seeing how it responds, with all signs being positive up to this point. He would rather be told to slow it down than have the trainers pushing him to go harder in order to catch up on his rehab timeline.
“I mean, you don’t know until you’re out here doing football stuff and really putting the ankle through the stuff that you know is required to play football,” he said. “You can’t simulate this stuff. So I don’t know if we’ll really know. I feel right now as we’ve been pushing it pretty hard, I feel really good. And so I’m itching to be out there and it’s a good place to be now where I feel like I’m asking for more and wanting to do more and feeling like you’re getting held back versus feeling like they’re pushing you to do more, you know? So we’re in a good place now where I feel like I want to get out there and play and they’re being cautious with it.”
While Kupp works his way back, players such as Van Jefferson, Ben Skowronek, Tutu Atwell and Puka Nacua will get more opportunities in practice, which is only going to help their development, too.
