Cooper Kupp: Value signing?? 🤔

The Seahawks made a risky move, but it won't take much to break even at wide receiver

Though many are reasonably hesitant to praise the Cooper Kupp signing because of his $15 million per year price tag, a number that the Cowboys and Patriots reportedly balked at paying, it’s never a bad idea to go back and check the context of a deal. Especially in the NFL, where prices go up every year.

It is because of this position’s overpriced markup that the top NAMES left in free agency after two weeks are mostly all wide receivers on the wrong side of 29. These receivers are not signed as of Sunday:

• Stefon Diggs, 32

• Keenan Allen, 33

• Amari Cooper, 31

• Tyler Lockett, 33

• Robert Woods, 33

• Diontae Johnson, 29

This list does feed into the narrative that Kupp is overpaid because he’s 31 and he has missed at least five games in each of the past three seasons. By comparison, 33-year-old DeAndre Hopkins got only $5 million to sign with the Ravens and he doesn’t have an injury history.

However, what about the receivers who have signed deals in 2025?

1 - Most receivers past their mid-20s are finding out that they won’t even be considered (which we’ve known for a while now)

2 - The mid-20s receivers who are allowed to leave their teams are being overpaid — More overpaid than Kupp probably

Josh Palmer, Tutu Atwell, and Dyami Brown all signed contracts worth $10 million per season, although Palmer is the only one who got multiple years. Still, the Rams banked $10 million on Atwell for one season despite him cracking 500 yards for the first time in 2025 (with no touchdowns), while the Jaguars are paying the same amount for Brown even though he had a career-high 308 yards in 2024.

The NFL isn’t keeping any secrets from us over how they feel about receivers:

“If you’re 26 (like Palmer, Brown, and Tutu all are), we’ll OVER-pay. If you’re over 26, we WON’T pay.”

Well, usually not.

Is $45 million worth more than $132 million?

Continuing the theme of context for Seattle’s decision to trade DK Metcalf and sign Kupp, the Pittsburgh Steelers took a massive gamble at the receiver position with that deal. One that few teams would probably make given Metcalf’s age and history.

DK Metcalf turned 27 in December and he signed a four-year, $132 million extension with the Steelers that runs through 2029, which will be his age-32 season.

The Steelers are paying age-25 prices for a 28-year-old receiver?

OverTheCap’s Jason Fitzgerald recently wrote about the recent extensions for receivers like Metcalf, Ja’Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins, noting that Metcalf will make $96.5 million through the first three years of his new contract. That is the fourth-most for any receiver in the NFL, behind only Chase, Justin Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb. It is more than Higgins, who has $88.8 million through three years. It is also more than Tyreek Hill and A.J. Brown.

Kupp’s 2021 season is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, so the context of his past three seasons would be: 68.5 yards per game, 6 TD per season, 7.7 yards per target, 68.6% catch rate. I just want you to know I wasn’t trying to hide anything, I just thought going back four seasons would be fair to everybody.

Setting aside the fact that other than 2020, Metcalf has never really hit that WR1 ceiling over six seasons, and that he is the most-penalized and most prone to fumbling WR in the NFL, and that the Steelers are banking on a receiver before they even have a quarterback (Mason Rudolph is QB1 until further notice), this is what should stand out to us about DK’s contract:

• DK’s extension starts when he is 29

• Higgins’ contract starts now, when he is 26

• Chase’s deal starts in 2026, when he’ll be 26

• Jefferson’s deal starts in 2025, and he’s 26

The Dallas Cowboys gave Lamb a four-year, $136 million contract in 2024, when he was 25. How is it possible that the Steelers gave Metcalf almost the same contract as CeeDee, one year later, when Metcalf turns 28 that same year?

And CeeDee Lamb is better.

Kupp’s value is tied to not costing $96 million over 3 years

There is a clear contradiction going on here between what the NFL is doing as a whole and what the Steelers did, a contract that the Seahawks managed to avoid:

• Over-30 free agents are having a hard time getting a market going for themselves

• The Steelers tied themselves to Metcalf for his age 30, 31, and 32 seasons

Even if the Steelers cut Metcalf in 2028, which seems more likely than not given the $22 million cap savings that would come with that move, Pittsburgh is still on the hook for $12 million in dead money that season and $6 million in 2029.

That won’t be a lot of cap space by the time we get there, but if we’ve learned anything from the lack of interest in former number ones like Diggs, Allen, and Cooper, it’s that the league will have moved on from DK Metcalf by 2028.

Which means that the Pittsburgh Steelers REALLY NEED DK Metcalf to help them win a Super Bowl in 2025, 2026, or 2027.

The Steelers will be paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $80-$90 million just to have DK for those seasons, so what else is he there for if not to win a Super Bowl now?

On the other hand, the Seahawks will pay Cooper Kupp $45 million over the same period of time and most likely will not even pay out the third season of his new deal. If there’s dead money, it should be minimal.

Yes, Metcalf is all of these things in 2025:

• Much younger than Kupp

• Consistently healthier than Kupp

• Plays a harder-to-fill position than Kupp

• Would make much more on the free agent market than Kupp

But Metcalf has to be worth $90 million over three years, whereas Seattle only needs Kupp to be worth about $30 million over two.

Could Kupp be a better fit for the 2025 Seahawks too?

Kupp has been the best receiver in the NFL before, whereas Metcalf is still out to prove that he’s one of the top-10.

• 100-yard games in 2024: Kupp 3, Metcalf 3

• 90-yard games in 2024: Kupp 4, Metcalf 4

• 2024 Yards per game: Kupp 59.2, Metcalf 66.1

• 2024 Catch%: Kupp 67%, Metcalf 61.1%

And Kupp has nine career penalties, four of which were 5-yarders. Metcalf has 37 career penalties (in two fewer seasons), 33 of which were of the 10 or 15-yard variety.

If you’re telling me that Kupp is going to be worse than Metcalf in 2025 because he’s 4.5 years older and oft injured, that is more likely to be true than not. But if the Seahawks can squeeze two years out of him in which the value is somewhat comparable, the team will have saved something in the neighborhood of $35-$40 million by making this change…and gained Pittsburgh’s 2025 second round pick for the trouble.

Plus, Kupp could add value to the Seahawks that won’t always be apparent from the box score:

• He’s a first rate run blocker

• He’s considered one of the hardest-working players in the NFL

• He’s going to be a role model for Klint Kubiak’s heavy usage of pre-snap motion and play action passing (a Sean McVay staple)

• Jaxon Smith-Njigba may benefit from moving out of the slot

ESPN’s Matt Bowen had this to say of what the addition could mean for JSN:

“… Under (Kubiak) the Seahawks will deploy more motion/movement and use the play-action pass game. That’s a positive for Kupp, who can get free access off the ball based on formation and reduced sets, as well as schemed concepts that create zone voids and defined throws for Darnold.

"Both Kupp and Smith-Njigba inside/outside flex to play on the perimeter or in the slot, which gives the Seahawks more alignment versatility in three wide receiver sets."

That’s in addition to Kupp’s experience as a Super Bowl winner, as a teammate who Puka Nacua credits with helping his instant development into a top-5 receiver, and from not setting the offense back with 10 and 15-yard penalties.

Whereas the worst case scenario for keeping DK Metcalf would be a sunk cost of $80 million guaranteed, the worst case for signing Cooper Kupp is that that Seattle releases him in 2026 without anything left to pay him….

The guaranteed money still hasn’t been reported, but given everything outlined here already, it would be surprising if the Seahawks were willing to do anything more than a “if he’s on the roster on the 3rd day of the 2026 league year” type of pact. And even if they did, it would still be a lot less money than $80 million!

Riskier, not risky

Yeah, the Seahawks are taking some chances here to sign an over-30 receiver with an injury history — we know how little faith the NFL has in such players — but it’s not the worst receiver risk in the league…not even close:

• Calvin Ridley: $23 million per year from Titans at age 31

• Davante Adams: $22m per year from the Rams at age 33

• Chris Godwin: $22m per year from the Bucs at 29 (coming off injury)

$15 million per season is less money than what Christian Kirk got in 2022 ($18m), and barely more than Khalil Shakir, Gabe Davis, Darnell Mooney, or Darius Slayton. Kupp’s final guarantee number could also be less than all of those players, as well as the $22 million guaranteed that Allen Lazard got from the Jets, and roughly the same as the $15 million that Josh Palmer got from the Bills.

Less than a year ago, the 49ers paid Brandon Aiyuk $30 million per season and $76 million guaranteed. Now they’re trying to get rid of him.

Is that a bigger risk than adding Kupp for $15 million when you can afford it?

I doubt that many people are going to agree that Cooper Kupp could be called a value signing at $15 million per season given his likelihood of injury at 31.

But in the context of the receivers who have signed deals, those who haven’t, and how much far worse players are getting paid just because they’re healthier and younger, the Seahawks took a calculated risk to add Kupp when they did.

Based on these deals, he stands a good chance to be more valuable in his age-31 and age-32 seasons than DK Metcalf during his age-31 and age-32 seasons.

Seaside Joe 2209