It never gets old watching Kupp on the field

Finally, I had a reason to tune into Monday Night Football and it was nothing more complex than the opportunity to watch Cooper Kupp on one side and John Gruden on the other.

Kupp’s Rams prevailed over Gruden’s Raiders 33-13 in the much-ballyhooed return of “Chucky” to Oakland as head coach. Gruden was on the sidelines of the team for the first time since his departure to Tampa Bay in 2002.

Somehow a 10-year, $100-million salary was sufficient to lure the 55-year-old stoic Gruden out of the broadcast booth in which he has spent the better part of the past decade. And it will allow him sufficient funds to soon relocate — again — to Las Vegas in 2020. That’s when the city’s new stadium on “The Strip” is completed.

But it was under-the-radar Kupp who did his best to overshadow Gruden’s return to the raucous Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.

Kupp got a lot of attention in the Rams’ high-powered offense as a rookie. He helped them go from worst to first between 2016 and 2017 in their renaissance. The Los Angeles offense averaged 29.9 points per game last season, becoming the first team in the Super Bowl era to go from lowest-scoring (14.0 ppg in 2016) to highest in a year.

But there’s a notion that some players experience what is known as the “sophomore jinx,” following their rookie season in sports. And while one game does not a season make, early-on there was maybe that thought.

In the beginning on Monday night, Kupp was very un-Kupp-like. He had several tosses from quarterback Jared Goff which were either just wide or short. They were throws that when at Eastern Washington, Kupp seemed to always have enough of a fingernail on that he would be able to at least bobble, and them haul in.

And the talking heads — play-by-play guy Mark Tessitone and analyst former Dallas Cowboy Mark Witten — took notice, stressing the obvious, like “Kupp’s gotta’ catch balls like that.”

And he would, primarily in the second half, finishing with five catches for 52 yards and a touchdown. Kupp’s score would come as time ran out in the third quarter and broke a 13-13 tie and were essentially the Rams’ winning points.

Kupp caught the Raiders’ defense off guard with the play where he started off as a decoy blocker and then curled out and towards the goal line for a Goff pass. Kupp strolled into the end zone untouched.

How Kupp quietly caught five balls, three for first-down conversions, should not have been lost on anyone — Gruden, and his pensive smile, included.“Just about every route that we put in, the Rams run, Cooper Kupp could run that route,” Gruden told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Believe it or not, as a third-round draft pick in 2017, the rookie Kupp actually beat out the more flashy side of the Rams’ receiving corps as the team’s leading receiver with 869 yards on 62 receptions. Only Todd Gurley had more catches, 64 but trailed with 788 yards.

“Kupp’s a really good player. Not many people really know about him,” Gruden went on. “He’s overshadowed by some of the stars in L.A. But this guy can do damage as a slot receiver, as a blocker.”

And Monday night he did all the things that made Kupp NFL-caliber material. His blocking freed double-threat Gurley who broke a number of long runs on the way to a 20-carry, 108-yard night in Oakland.

Being somewhat anonymous on the football field seems to have been part of Kupp’s career. After setting all-time receiving records for his high school team, the Davis Pirates in Yakima, Kupp was a Seattle Times “White Chip” selection, as one of the top 100 prospects in the state of Washington.

Still, he was lightly recruited, which was probably everyone else’s loss and certainly Eastern Washington University’s gain where reviewing Kupp’s stats is always fun. His 6,464 career receiving yards are most in Football Championship Subdivision history, passing NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice’ s 4,693. Kupp’s 73 receiving touchdowns also rank first in FCS history.

It never got old watching Kupp as an Eagle, and nothing at all has changed now that he’s a Ram.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].