Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp recently joined former Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman on Edelman's "Games with Names" podcast, discussing what makes quarterback Matthew Stafford great, playing the wide receiver position, the 2021 NFC Championship game and more.
Here are some of the best moments
The approach behind running routes on air
Yes, there is strategy behind running routes on air when a receiver is doing so while catching passes from a quarterback. In both of their situations, each receiver's quarterback handled it differently.
Edelman explained that Tom Brady would typically run those sessions like a 2-minute drill.
"When I'd come out here to L.A., he would work me to death," Edelman said, mentioning that Brady would go through each of his roles and routes across sub packages, then go into redzone work, in an effort to make him think while he was tired.
Kupp said he and Stafford never done that before outside of just conditioning, such as going through an 8-play drive as fast as they can.
"Matthew's more of a route tree guy," Kupp said. "He wants to get all of this throws in. Everyone once in a while, he lets me choose some of the stuff. Because I really like going, 'Hey, we're going to run a corner route today, but I want it against every look we're going to get."
In doing so, there would be intent behind it, and he and Stafford would know all the different ways the routes would look based on the types of coverages and looks they would get.
How one workout became the foundation for his own development
Kupp told Edelman about how he's had the same receiver coaching three since 2008: His high school position coach was best friends with his college position coach, who coached Rams wide receivers coach Eric Yarber, who coach Junior Adams (Kupp's position coach in college).
Kupp said that consistency helped his game, but it also forced him to find another perspective – other tools and drills from others to incorporate into his game.
That led to him working with former Bears wide receiver Curtis Conway before the 2018 season.
"It's Friday before we report on Tuesday for training camp, I'm with Curtis Conway," Kupp said. "I show up on Friday, he's going to take through some drills. I just want to get perspective, I want to see someone else take me through stuff. A lot of times I go with someone, and I might spend a few days working out with someone and be like, 'I grabbed one thing I want to take with me.' Sometimes there's nothing, sometimes there's like, 'Man, there's a treasure trove of stuff that I want to use here.'"
They then proceeded to run curl routes for an hour straight, to the point Kupp's toes were bloodied.
"But I want to go here for someone, hear someone different," Kupp said, noting they did more stuff with attacking the leverage of defenders versus the stems.
Kupp couldn't remember if it was from Conway that Kupp pulled this idea, but he said he wanted to think of himself as a receiver who is always accelerating. It was the beginning of him thinking about how he wanted to stop and how he wanted to run his routes to the top.
He said that session has essentially developed into the basis of how he views himself now.
NFC Championship
Scoring this one, Kupp gives it an 8.7 in total. In another segment, Kupp also had an interesting schematic breakdown of some of the plays and concepts they used against the 49ers in this game.
You can watch the full episode with Kupp's appearance below:
