“You Know Who” Could Be Coming to the Vikings
The Cooper Kupp fodder regarding 2025 Minnesota Vikings free agency isn’t overblown smoke.
“You Know Who” Could Be Coming to the Vikings
It’s realistic, and fans should brace for his free-agent addition sometime this week.
The first wave of purple free agency is winding down, with players Ryan Kelly (C), Will Fries (G), Jonathan Allen (DT), Javon Hargrave (DT), and Isaiah Rodgers (CB) turning purple so far. The team also re-signed Pro Bowl cornerback Byron Murphy Jr.
But Kupp could be next, says Star Tribune‘s Ben Goessling.
“I think it’s very possible. There are big Cooper Kupp fans on that coaching staff,” Goessling said Tuesday while talking to KFAN about Kupp to the Twin Cities.
“Wes Phillips is a big Cooper Kupp fan in terms of, you hear him talk all the time about Cooper Kupp as a run blocker, Cooper Kupp as a guy who would bring ideas to the offense.”
This is Minnesota’s wide receiver room under contract for 2025:
- Justin Jefferson
- Jordan Addison
- Jalen Nailor
- Jeshaun Jones
- Thayer Thomas
- Lucky Jackson
Goessling added, “When Justin Jefferson put the triple move on Stephon Gilmore and cooked him in that game — in the comeback game in 2022 — that was a Kupp and Stafford play that they basically drew up during a COVID workout that they brought to Minnesota because they brought it to Phillips and O’Connell and Sean McVay, and it lived on and kind of morphed to that.”
ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweeted Monday, “Sources: Rams are planning to release WR Cooper Kupp after the start of the new league year unless a trade materializes.”
So that puts a possible Wednesday or Thursday crescendo on this Vikings-Kupp theory.
Kupp is in the purple team’s rumor mill because he and Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell won a Super Bowl together in 2021 with the Rams. The veteran wideout won the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year award that season, with O’Connell front and center in the offense.
Minnesota may upgrade WR3 this offseason — finally — because of Kupp’s availability and the fact that Jordan Addison could be suspended to start the 2025 season due to a legal infraction.
Kupp, at age 32 next season, would represent a serious upgrade over incumbent WR Jalen Nailor. The ties to O’Connell obviously do not hurt the Kupp-to-Minnesota dream.
Meanwhile, KSTP’s Darren Wolfson linked Kupp to Minnesota last month. “It’s not just KOC, there are other people in Eagan who think the world of Cooper Kupp,” Wolfson said on SKOR North airwaves in February.
“I think the Rams would have to cut him, or eat a ton of money, the Vikings are not absorbing a big Cooper Kupp number,” Wolfson added about the feasibility of Kupp joining the Vikings’ depth chart.
And wouldn’t you know it? The Rams are mere hours from cutting Kupp.
This thing could happen.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His MIN obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment.