Can Cooper Kupp have the best age-33 season by a receiver ever?

The Seahawks receiver could at least make modern history with an achievable yardage goal for 2026

If it weren’t for Jerry Rice, maybe Cooper Kupp could have the best age-33 season by a receiver in NFL history. Fittingly, Kupp won the Jerry Rice award, which goes to the top FCS freshman in the country, when he caught 18 touchdowns and a national freshman-record 1,387 yards for Eastern Washington in 2013. An honor that started in 2011, Kupp is still the only wide receiver to win an award that was named after a wide receiver.

Now 13 years after he won the Jerry Rice award, the only thing standing between Kupp and history at age 33 could be Jerry Rice.

In 1995, Rice had 1,848 yards for the San Francisco 49ers in 16 games, which is still 451 more yards than any receiver has ever had at age 33 OR OLDER.

That’s a huge gap between Rice and a lot of age-33+ seasons.

The most recent player at any position to get 1,300 receiving yards at that age is Travis Kelce in 2022, but the most yards by a 33 or older wide receiver in the last 10 years belongs to Larry Fitzgerald, who had 1,156 yards for the Arizona Cardinals in 2017 when he was 34.

It’s a topic that I’ve written about a lot since 2020:

The NFL doesn’t want old receivers anymore.

With so many talented pass catchers coming into the league through the draft every year, and doing so not only at receiver but also at tight end and running back, not to mention the increasing importance of the slot, NFL general managers with a salary cap budget can rarely afford the veteran salaries.

Even a cheap veteran receiver is still too expensive compared to most rookie contracts. Take last season’s Titans for example:

Calvin Ridley had 303 yards and no touchdowns, whereas rookies Elic Eyomanor and Chimere Dike had 515 yards and 423 yards respectively, four touchdowns each.

• Calvin Ridley had a $28 million cap hit (1st)

• Eyomanor and Dike were barely over $1 million

There is certainly something special about number one receivers, including Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the highest-paid receiver in the league right now. But JSN is 24.

Seahawks fans can’t expect him to still be worth a top-tier salary in six years. Maybe he’ll defy the odds, but fans can’t expect it to happen. Every receiver goes down hill as he gets closer to and over 30, and they go down fast.

But I’m getting this strange feeling about Cooper Kupp right before the start of the season.

Does Cooper Kupp have a big year left in him?

If it sounds weird to bring up the best over-30 receiver (and under-30) of all-time in relation to Kupp, it should. Kupp is coming off of a season in which he only had 593 yards and he was actually healthy for most of it.

The playoffs were a little better, averaging 52.3 yards per game, an increase over the 37.1 per game he had in the regular season.

If Kupp were to average 52.3 in the regular season and not miss one, he would end up with 889 yards in 2026. That would be the 80th most yards by any age-33 or older player in history—squeezed between Andre Reed and Ed McCaffrey—which is already respectable.

Kupp’s putting in the work in the film room with Sam Darnold, obviously:

But if we only look at seasons since 2010, then 889 yards would be 17th overall. And 14th if we don’t include tight ends.

Actually, if we shorten the time frame even more, only one 33+ wide receiver has had over 900 receiving yards since 2020:

Adam Thielen had 1,014 yards with the Carolina Panthers in 2023.

Even that season is kind of unfair to compare to any other because the Panthers went into the year knowing that Thielen would be their only option—and no other teams in the NFL were all that interested in even signing him. Carolina had one of the worst offenses in the league and Bryce Young force-fed 137 targets to Thielen because the Panthers were trying to give him the softest introduction to the NFL possible.

The next most-recent productive season by an age 33+ receiver?

Julian Edelman had 1,117 yards with the Patriots in 2019.

In his last season with New England, Tom Brady force-fed 153 targets to Edelman; running back James White had 93 targets and Phillip Dorsett was third on the team (second among receivers) with 54 targets. Edelman got three times as many targets as any other Patriots receiver.

We can see that in both situations, an age 33+ receiver only got 1,000 yards because he was the number one receiver on a team with no other viable receivers and the quarterback had to throw it short and intermediate often.

That’s certainly NOT the situation that Kupp finds himself in with the Seahawks going into 2026:

• Sam Darnold is a great deep ball passer

• Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the reigning Offensive Player of the Year

• Seattle plans to balance its passing offense with a deep roster of weapons

How could Kupp come even close to 800 or 900 yards in 2026 then? Well, these were also all things true of the Seahawks in the playoffs last year and in two of three games, Kupp was targeted more than JSN. He was even targeted 12 times in the Super Bowl.

Obviously whenever JSN is healthy and available, he will lead the Seahawks in targets, generally speaking.

But there could also be more times than expected that the presence of JSN and Rashid Shaheed as middle-to-deep targets, plus the increasing relevancy of Elijah Arroyo as a deep seam threat, may open Kupp for opportunities in Brian Fleury’s offense that help him have his best season since 2021.

Of course, there’s also the White Elephant in the room.

I would say that Edelman, Thielen, and Kupp all being white is a coincidence, but their attributes that have made them maintain relevancy as receivers deep into their thirties is not:

• These receivers don’t rely on speed

• These receivers don’t rely on verticals

• These receivers don’t even rely on catch radius

All things that will break down as you get closer to 30. Kupp fell to the third round because he’s “slow”, and he’s certainly not any faster now than he was at 23.

Instead, these receivers rely on getting open, creating separation, catching everything, and in Kupp’s case especially, blocking their asses off.

Kupp had an average depth of target of 7.4 yards last season (another white receiver, Alec Pierce, averaged 18.9, proving we can look past superficial explanations), which is basically the same depth of target he’s always had.

Whereas we can look at someone like Larry Fitzgerald and say, “He had to change his playing style from his 20s to his 30s, from a monster outside threat to a reliable slot weapon”, Cooper Kupp is the same Cooper Kupp he’s always been. In many ways, Kupp should be the same receiver in 2026 that he was in 2021 when he won Offensive Player of the Year and Super Bowl MVP.

It’s his environment that has changed more than he has.

Back in 2021, Kupp had:

• Sean McVay calling plays for him

• Matthew Stafford, a QB proven to dig his heels on one WR and go off, setting records for Calvin Johnson, Kupp, and Puka Nacua

• His health (his only 17-game season)

Now he’s taking a backseat to JSN, as he should and he wouldn’t argue against it, which is probably even better for him. He’s less likely to get injured, more likely to be the player who provides value by moving the chains on third-and-medium, and not necessarily by being targeted 10 times.

Kupp’s four targets in a game are often more valuable than another player’s 15.

Take Week 18 for example:

Number one seed on the line, fourth quarter, Seahawks leading the 49ers 13-3. Facing third-and-10 with 4 minutes on the clock, Darnold found Kupp for a gain of 24. Seattle iced the game away and earned the number one seed.

It was those types of plays that mattered—and Kupp had a lot of those plays—that wouldn’t necessarily result in 100 yards.

Kupp hasn’t had a 100-yard game since November, 2024.

And the Seahawks don’t care.

Kupp’s best (and last?) Seahawks season

Seattle didn’t press their luck on Kupp’s contract, letting it become guaranteed and putting him in the upper echelon of receiver salary cap hits despite him being 33 and coming off of a season with under 600 yards. Although it doesn’t matter if he is under 600 yards, I do believe he will go well above it.

Because remarkably there are still probably more questions about Shaheed, Arroyo, and Tory Horton than there are about 33-year-old Kupp.

This is not to disparage those or any other Seahawks pass catchers, so much as it is a compliment to Kupp for his work ethic and Seattle’s coaches for keeping him fresh—something I wrote about in July that they don’t get any credit for—into this stage of his career.

And the bar for modern greatness at this age of a receiver’s career isn’t high at all. Look at the best yardage seasons in the 17-game era:

Four of the top-14 seasons over 500 yards are by Kelce, three others are by other tight ends. That leaves seven wide receiver seasons, including one by Davante Adams, who took Kupp’s place on the Rams last year. If Kupp has just 800 yards, he’ll join Thielen and A.J. Green.

(For what it’s worth, two young receivers who I could see also extending their careers into their mid-30s would include Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Amon-Ra St. Brown, so again, it’s not just guys who look like Adam Thielen.)

Whether the Seahawks and/or Kupp expect this marriage to last past 2026 isn’t known and may not even be predetermined. It could, and likely does depend on the outcome.

I’ve just got this feeling that Cooper Kupp’s 2026 season won’t be the type that we’ve come to expect from a receiver over-30 anymore.

Not saying they’re going to name an award after him or anything, but if they did, it would be fitting.

Seaside Joe 2720