Fantasy Football: Seahawks Sign Cooper Kupp

Fantasy Football: Seahawks Sign Cooper Kupp

John Schneider might be cooking over there in Seattle. After Seattle trades Metcalf to Pittsburgh, the Steelers have to give Metcalf $30 million per year. The Seahawks a few days later find a way to pick up Kupp for half the price while collecting a second rounder. Real football aside, this move is fascinating to me and needs to be talked about from a fantasy football angle.

By the way, I’m totally betting Seattle to win the NFC West at +700. Maybe you will join me in that journey?

K. Back on track now… call me crazy but I think I’m in love with this deal. Maybe the most influential move in terms of fantasy that totally changes my mind on something going into my draft.

I’m in on this entire Seattle situation – fantasy included. I’m just going to say it. When it comes to fantasy, what we are truly looking at is snapshots in moment of time.

Sam Darnold’s 28-year-old season is an upgrade over Geno Smith’s 35-year-old season. It just is and I’m not sure how it’s arguable. I’m not a stats analytical nerd numbers guy but the touchdown number alone last year I’m not sure how you argue the other side of it.

This is the other part. Klint Kubiak proved last year that he knows what he’s doing. The Saints got out of the gates hot before their team fell apart and Dennis Allen got fired tanking everything in sight. Kubiak comes from that Kyle Shanahan tree, which is the same one Kevin O’Connell comes from as a former Sean McVay assistant.

This system Darnold is running is going to be eerily similar to the one he just threw for 35 touchdowns in a year ago. Even if you’re somehow not in favor of this swap… we’re talking about fantasy football. Even if the bad turnovers are mixed in there, Kupp isn’t getting penalized for it. A quarterback’s best friend in fantasy football is Jameis Winston. We’ve seen that plenty before. Darnold will be just fine for Kupp in fantasy and there is no shadow of a doubt he is an upgrade over Geno in all aspects of the sport.

Speaking of Kubiak, I don’t want to leave this part out. One of the reasons why Seattle moved off Ryan Grubb is because they decided this college spread passing 3WR BS isn’t the way to win football games. Jaxon Smith-Njigba sort of broke out last year but DK Metcalf didn’t put up earth-shattering numbers. There are a lot of mouths to feed when you constantly go in 3WR looks with Geno Smith sucking out there.

This offense is going to the Shanahan way. That means an extra guy to block with a lot of open playaction looks going to Kupp. A lot of two tight end looks to help the run game with a large percentage of targets going to JSN and Kupp. That’s going to be the offense. They’re going to run the football a fair amount but the target numbers will be there.

How about this part of it. The Rams released Kupp. For a guy like that who is in the NFL because he works hard as a guy who was doubted playing collegiate ball for Eastern Washington, I hope this lit a fire under him. I know it did. Coming back to the state of Washington was a factor. So was sticking it to the man and playing LA twice a year.

We don’t need Kupp to be the 2021 version of himself. We just need a healthy play in all the games 80% version of that. As long as Kupp is around for the fantasy playoffs, which obviously isn’t a guarantee, he’s going to have extreme value and can probably be had at a discount given how the last year went. Buy the stock here. He’s someone I want in drafts this upcoming year because I bet the price is reasonable and I still think he has something left in the tank.

Subscribe to Vendetta’s Twitch

Subscribe to Vendetta’s YouTube

Check out Vendetta Fantasy Contests

Click here for more Fantasy Football content