Nsimba Webster to get more chances on punt returns in place of Cooper KuppCameron DaSilva
Cooper Kupp is one of the Rams’ most important players on offense, which is what made it so surprising when Sean McVay made him the team’s primary punt returner. The experiment hasn’t exactly gone well, with Kupp returning just seven punts for 44 yards – six of which have come in the last two weeks, returning them for 36 yards.
He’s fumbled it once on a punt return and been conservative with fair catches, leading to a lack of explosive plays on special teams from L.A. McVay has recognized it’s time for a change, and so Nsimba Webster is going to get more opportunities to return punts moving forward.
“I think we’ll look into it,” he said Monday. “Cooper is such an important part of us offensively. I think it was good for Nsimba to get back there in those elements. We have the confidence in his ability to field it, he’s got great run instincts and natural run ability to be able to have those skills translate to being a good punt returner. I think those will be things that we’ll evaluate by the situation. You can expect to see Nsimba some more potential opps and I thought he did a nice job with the chances he had yesterday.”
Against Washington on Sunday, Webster returned three punts for 11 yards. It wasn’t much, but he seemed to provide a spark on special teams with more speed and quickness than Kupp has. It’s likely that the Rams could still use Kupp in obvious fair catch situations thanks to his good hands, but Webster has more juice in the return game and is more apt to create a big play.
Last season, Webster returned seven punts for 18 yards and two kickoffs for 57 yards, though he did fumble it once.
