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Yes, the "downside" would've been if Kupp got hurt on a muffed punt ...
I guess there is a statistical chance that he could have muffed a punt and then could have been hurt in the ensuing scramble to recover the ball. My guess is the odds of that happening are vanishingly small ... but it isn't zero. The Rams apparently weighted that unbelievably small risk against the risk of a bad decision regarding fair catch or letting it go.
edit: In an attempt to calculate what I meant by 'vanishingly small' ...
I Googled "how often is there a muffed punt on a fair catch in the nfl" and got 1.15%. That's one muff every 87 fair catches on average in the NFL and I would wager that Kupp is better than average, perhaps a lot better than average.
Then I Googled "how often is a punt returner injured trying to recover a muffed punt" and I got "Out of thousands of punts each season, muffs only occur a couple of times per team per year, meaning an injury on this specific fraction of a fraction of plays is a statistical anomaly."
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... or hurt when he actually did try and return it. He didn't return it often but I think I do remember at least a couple times but I could be wrong.
The year in question was 2021 and he only had 1 punt return for 8 yards.
On that punt the ball hit the ground a couple yards in front of him along the sidelines and it bounced right up into his arms. he took a couple steps, picked up 8 yards, and ducked out of bounds untouched.
He also had 1 solo tackle that year, my guess is on an int return. To me that seems riskier than fair catching a punt.
Personally I'd rather have him fair catch a few punts than block a DE or OLB but the Rams didn't exactly ask my opinion on that.
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Having Kupp as the returner told me McVay didn't value the position enough to have a reliable returner back there. Imo, he needs to change that philosophy. There are 3 parts to a team. Not just one or two.
Having Kupp as the returner told me that McVay though he had the best combination of hands and decision making on the team.
In situations where actually returning the punt was a viable option the Rams used Atwell (10 punt returns), Powell (6), and Koski (2) at various times. The takeaway from where I sit: the three of them could catch a punt just fine but were not as good as Kupp at deciding whether they should fair catch a punt near their own goal line or let it bounce into the end zone. By relying on Kupp they avoided situations where one of those other guys might have fair caught a ball on the 2 yard line that would have otherwise bounced into the end zone and situations where one of the other guys let a punt go that was eventually downed inside the 1.
The Rams weighed the risk of Kupp muffing the ball and then getting hurt trying to recover the ball vs. the risk of starting at the 1 or 2 yards line instead of the 20. Personally I was OK with their choice, your mileage may vary.
AlbaNY_Ram
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2026 01:44PM by AlbaNY_Ram.
