It’s 2021. The Baltimore Ravens have just won the AFC North and Lamar Jackson is the frontrunner for league MVP. COVID-19 is a nightmare of the past, and the Ravens have too many healthy players to know what to do with.
The only injured member of the team is John Harbaugh, who got a black eye after accidentally popping champagne in his face to toast to the team’s most productive player of the past four years: Cooper Kupp.
Imagining what could have been is a dangerous enterprise, but indulge us for a moment. What if the Ravens had drafted Cooper Kupp in the 2017 NFL Draft?
Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic reported that Baltimore had its eyes on Kupp back in 2017 and nearly picked him up in the third round of the draft. The Ravens were five picks away from taking the wide receiver when the Los Angeles Rams foiled their plans.
Interesting context for Sunday's matchup between Cooper Kupp and a decimated Ravens secondary, courtesy of @jeffzrebiec. https://t.co/DDzPH5y2ur pic.twitter.com/ZZjSA9Iyc8
— J.B. Long (@JB_Long) January 1, 2022
Zrebiec puts it best: “We don’t really know what Kupp would have become if he was taken by the Ravens, but we do know what he is now: one of the best receivers in football and an MVP candidate.”
Dredging up the past usually doesn’t do any good, and the reality is that the Rams beat the Ravens in Week 17, dealing a critical blow to Baltimore’s postseason hopes.
The Ravens did not win the AFC North — the Cincinnati Bengals did. And Cooper Kupp is not on the Ravens — he’s on the Rams.
The Ravens almost picked Cooper Kupp in the 2017 NFL Draft
With Baltimore’s playoff chances dwindling, one may fantasize what an elite wideout like Kupp would have done for the team.
Kupp is currently leading the league with 138 catches for 1,829 yards and 15 touchdowns.
Tight end Mark Andrews comes closest to Kupp at 1,279 yards, but Kupp’s yardage total is roughly equivalent to that of the Ravens’ top three wide receivers. Combined.
Chances are that drafting Kupp would have drastically changed the team’s offensive production, even with Lamar Jackson getting drafted a year later.
Jackson’s running ability has long been praised as the crux of Baltimore’s offense and identity, but it’s his passing statistics that sneak up on you.
In 2021, Jackson has thrown for 2,882 yards while recording a 64.4 pass completion percentage. That’s just 300 yards shy and a few percentages lower than what he recorded in his 2019 MVP season (3,127 yards, 66.1 percent), and he played in three more games that year.
With an ever-efficient and reliable Cooper Kupp in his wide receiver room, Jackson might have found even more success in the passing game.
Mark Andrews would be supplanted as the team-leading receiver, the run-heavy Ravens would have flip-flopped to the pass-heavy Ravens, and Jackson and Kupp would have formed a quarterback-receiver duo worthy of challenging Mahomes-Hill or Rodgers-Adams.
Then again, one elite receiver doesn’t magically make the Ravens’ offensive woes go away.
Baltimore still has issues with its offensive line. Jackson has 13 interceptions against 16 touchdowns this season and has struggled since Week 9’s loss to the Miami Dolphins.
Truth be told, no one knows how Cooper Kupp would have fared as a Ravens player, and while it’s relatively harmless to entertain what-ifs, it also serves little purpose.
Baltimore can’t change the past, but they can try to control the future in a Week 18 playoff-deciding matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Leave the unattainable be.