The Los Angeles Rams will get a big boost on Sunday, as they officially activated star WR Cooper Kupp from the Injured Reserve today, according to a report from NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport.
Kupp, who was the Offensive Player of the Year in 2021, missed the first four games of the season due to a hamstring injury. This only serves to bolster what is already a good passing offense, as the Rams still rank second in passing yards per game even without Kupp.
For the Steelers, this presents a bit of a matchup problem. Pittsburgh will head to Los Angeles to face the Rams in Week Seven, after their bye week in Week Six. Top wide receivers have had a lot of success against the Steelers this season, as Deebo Samuel, Davante Adams, Amari Cooper, and Nico Collins have all had huge games against this secondary.
Not only will the Steelers have to face one top receiver in Cooper Kupp, but also one of the biggest breakout players of 2023 in rookie Puka Nacua. Nacua leads the league with a whopping 39 receptions through his first four career games and also is third in the league in receiving yards per game, behind only superstar Justin Jefferson.
While it’ll be a team effort to slow these two down, a lot of the responsibility will fall on Levi Wallace and Patrick Peterson. It’ll be a good test, if nothing else, of whether this team has what it takes to stop elite air attacks in the regular season, and hopefully the playoffs.
This isn’t the Rams teams of old that won the Super Bowl, but they’ve stayed competitive in all four games this season, including being the only team to give the San Francisco 49ers any sort of real challenge. They will certainly be a challenge for this Steelers team that is sputtering a little bit. With the Ravens coming to town this week, you have to hope that the Steelers go at least 1-1 over those two games to stay in the race for the wild card, as well as the AFC North.
