Sports Illustrated Special - Super Bowl LVI Commemorative (2022)

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T

HE SPORTS WORLD met

Cooper Kupp, football scien-

tist, this past December,

when he gave one of t he most

detailed answers in the history of on-

field, postgame interviews. To casual

fans, his response to an NFL Network

reporter after a victory over the Jaguars

might as well have been delivered in

French. It was all “a little three-deep

fire zone,” “nickel off the edge” and “I

knew we were gonna get three pushing

through”—three data clues that, when

inputted, revealed he needed only to

beat one defender for an easy score.

His answer—delivered like a stream of

consciousness, clinical and monotone—

transformed a performative exercise into a brief X’s-

and-O’s seminar. Teammates laughed as they passed

the clip around, joking about Kupp and how his brain

happens to work. The moment went viral, leading to

delightful social media commentary, like, “When I ask

the technician what’s wrong with my car.”

Baugus saw something else: a window into how Kupp

thinks. “I got the impression that it was maybe a joke

to him,” Baugus says. “He had this little smirk on his

face. It was real subtle, like, I’m going to give you a little

taste of what goes on in my head.”

K

UPP, THE FOOTBALL scientist, knows

about the importance of timing. Indeed, the

idea has defined his career. The silence from

his preferred college destinations, USC and

Stanford, led him to Eastern Washington. That’s where

his coach, Jay Dumas, had once worked as an assistant

for his high school teammate, the Eagles’ head coach,

Beau Baldwin. Timing.

Eastern showcased a soaring offense, led by three

FCS All-American wideouts who turned games into

dizzying blurs. Kupp redshirted, allowing for more

development. Timing.

Even in the FCS, Eastern clashed with Pac-12 teams

each season. In those games Kupp elevated his NFL

prospects, whether dominating Oregon State in 2013

(five receptions, 119 yards and two touchdowns in his

through a battery of test results and GPS info gleaned

from the Rams. The data revealed that Kupp reached

max velocity sooner than most elite receivers—closer

to 25 yards downfield, or roughly five yards faster than

the norm. They compared how many yards he covered

in any one game with how many of those yards he tra-

versed at various percentages (70%, 80%, 90%) of his

max velocity. For Kupp to reach top speed even sooner

and cover greater distance at all percentages, that one

small step for one (not-small-anymore) man figured to

yield enormous gains.

Then they tailored his training program to address

that specific movement, and not for every day or every

session, but for every rep. Jernstrom viewed Kupp as

a “phenomenal accelerator,” quick, f luid and “aggres-

sive in his bursts.” To upgrade from “phenomenal,”

they turned to drills, sprints and an ancient Chinese

military treatise, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The book

highlights one relevant combat strategy, the concept of

space—creating your own or decreasing your enemy’s—

whether applied to the Battle of Normandy or an NFL

play. Kupp could create separation, or decrease the

cushion cornerbacks desired, if he knew where to go,

how to get there and how to deceive them. Which led

to the OODA loop, a four-step approach, developed by

U.S. fighter pilots—observe, orient, decide and act—to

make decisions under extreme pressure with clarity

and decisiveness.

LOS ANGELES RAMS

PROGRAMMING GENIUS

Kupp taught himself not just to run

precise routes and move quickly

but to attack and disorient the

defense with every step.

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