Jalen Ramsey and Cooper Kupp were teammates in Los Angeles for three and a half years, helping the Rams win Super Bowl LVI in 2021. Being on the same team for as long as they were, Ramsey and Kupp saw each other a lot on the practice field.
Ramsey always had a ton of respect for Kupp’s game and regularly praised the Rams wide receiver, and that admiration hasn’t waned now that they’re no longer on the same team. Ramsey still views Kupp as one of the best wideouts in football, putting him in the top five at his position leading up to Monday night’s game between the Rams and Dolphins.
“They were great,” Ramsey said, via the Palm Beach Post. “I’ve got a ton of respect for Coop. I easily think he’s a top five receiver. He and Matthew (Stafford) have a chemistry, great connection. And yeah, it was it was truly iron sharpening iron. We worked. We made each other better.”
Ramsey may be in Miami now, but he still has a lot of love for Los Angeles and the Rams, saying the city of LA is “like a home to me.”
“I never got an opportunity to give like a farewell gift to, you know, all the people out there,” Ramsey said. “It’s like a home to me. It’s like a family. I’ve got some family from out there. My daughter was born out there. Great memories out there. Everlasting memories of community, always treated me and my family right, nothing but loved and respected. So, still got a lot of ties out there. Still go out there often. A lot of positive energy out there. Nothing, like, negative that I could say about my time there.”
Monday will be Ramsey’s first time back in Los Angeles to face his former team, which traded him to the Dolphins in 2023. That adds to the magnitude of this matchup between the Rams and Dolphins, which might be a must-win game for his 2-6 Miami team.
If there’s one receiver that’s likely to see Ramsey often in coverage, it’s Kupp. Both players primarily line up in the slot, as they did often in practice when they were teammates with the Rams.
Kupp recalled those battles in Los Angeles, appreciating the way they made each other better.
“All those ‘Mamba’ periods. There were a lot of times when he played that star role for us for a while and with me playing in the slot a lot of the time, we ended up being matched up on each other often,” Kupp said Friday. “It was always so competitive. The physicality and the urgency that he plays with, it makes you meet him there. You can’t hesitate at all. It was something I appreciated about the way that Jalen played the game.”
Ramsey’s first season in Miami didn’t go according to plan in 2023, struggling to get going in Vic Fangio’s defense. But in 2024, he’s the Dolphins’ highest-graded player on defense (83.4), tied with Calais Campbell, per PFF.
The Rams know how talented and impactful Ramsey can be in the secondary, so they’ll try to find ways to attack other defenders instead of going at the All-Pro corner. That’s not to say Kupp will shy away from that matchup, but there are better ways to exploit Miami’s defense.
