THOUSAND OAKS — Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp will miss the season opener against the Seattle Seahawks as he continues to recover from a pulled hamstring, head coach Sean McVay said Wednesday, with a chance that Kupp could be sent to the injured reserve for an extended absence.
The Rams would have to decide by Saturday whether to put Kupp on the IR for him to be required to only miss the first four games of the season.
“We want to be able to just kind of give him a little bit of time,” McVay said.
Kupp initially injured his hamstring the first week of training camp in July. He went to Minneapolis over the weekend to see a specialist after re-aggravating his hamstring injury last week.
McVay said that the specialist did not provide much more information than the Rams’ previously knew, which was that this injury has not aligned with what the team’s trainers and doctors expect out of a muscle pull.
“There’s just a lot of gray behind this,” McVay said. “It doesn’t follow the standard protocol for when you’re re-aggravating a soft tissue injury. [We’re] trying to continue to get a grasp on exactly what it is so he can get back to feeling like the Cooper we know and love.”
Kupp entered training camp coming off tightrope surgery to repair a high ankle sprain that kept him out of the final eight games of last season. Despite limited work during the offseason, he looked like his old self during the initial practices of training camp, making eyebrow-raising catches that left defensive backs hanging their heads.
Now, Kupp will have to navigate this injury as the Rams’ season takes an early blow to one of its three pillars.