Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp had a significant impact on Sunday against his former team. Even if the stat line doesn’t show it, Kupp was one of the big reasons why Seattle advanced to the Super Bowl.
Perhaps the biggest play came when Kupp managed to catch a pass and convert a first down with 3:20 to play and the Seahawks leading by four.
On Monday, he admitted that he did something he shouldn’t have done.
“That’s a cardinal sin,” Kupp told reporters. “You don’t do that on third down. But I felt good about where I was at holding the ball and I also felt like based on how my momentum was going, where the DB was, how my body position was the only chance I had was to try to reach that thing out. I wasn’t concerned about the ball coming out. I knew the ground had forced the ball out, so weren’t concerns about that. The spot, I knew it was close.”
He was later asked to explain why it’s a “cardinal sin” to do what he did on third down.
“You never reach on third down,” Kupp said. “Fourth down, end of game, last play of the game where it’s fourth down, that’s where you can reach. On third down it’s because of that. Like if it was close and you get tackled and you’re short you have an opportunity to go for it still. You reach for it on third down, fumble, that opportunity is gone now. You eliminated the chance for anything on fourth down. And so that’s why you don’t do it on third, but it worked out. Process over results, so you don’t do that. Don’t do it.”
You don’t do it, unless you do. He did. And it worked.
It still would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the Rams had opted to throw the challenge flag. Would it have been ruled a first down? Would the replay process have concluded that Kupp was going to the ground when he caught the ball and lost possession when he landed, a la Brandin Cooks?
Regardless, it worked. And it helped slam the door on the last chance the Rams surely assumed they’d get (other than with 93 yards to go and 25 seconds left) when they went for it on fourth and four from the Seattle 6.
