Cooper Kupp gets last laugh with Super Bowl 2026 ring after contentious Rams split

The 2025 season started by trying to spit Cooper Kupp out.

It ended with confetti and another Lombardi Trophy.

In March last year, Kupp got a phone call from the Rams, the kind that changes how you see the league.

The Rams — the franchise that drafted him and molded him into a Super Bowl MVP — told him he was no longer part of their future.

Trade talks went nowhere. Davante Adams arrived. Kupp was released. Discarded is the word his camp used. Disrespected was the word his wife, Anna Marie, didn’t dance around.

Kupp didn’t rant. He didn’t beg. Instead he went home.

Seattle, the place that raised him. The Kupp family would often make the two-hour drive from Yakima to see the Seahawks and Mariners play when Kupp was a kid. Little did they know, he was quietly dreaming of playing for the Seahawks in a Super Bowl. 

So when the Seahawks called, it wasn’t nostalgia. It was need. Mike Macdonald had a name for what he was acquiring: a force multiplier. Not speed. Not age. Gravity.

In the NFC Championship game at Lumen Field, Kupp burned his former team with six catches and a touchdown, sealing Seattle’s ticket to Super Bowl 2026. 

Afterward, he took the high road, talking about the love he had for his former teammates and the bonds of brotherhood that would never break. But the message was clear without saying it: You misjudged me.

What Seattle understood — what Los Angeles miscalculated — is that Kupp has always been more than production. He infiltrated quarterback meetings. Mentored Jaxon Smith-Njigba into an Offensive Player of the Year. Built instant trust with Sam Darnold and his teammates by hosting secret workouts and team get-togethers at his house in the offseason. 

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Entering Sunday, he was chasing history, trying to become the first receiver to win multiple Super Bowl MVPs.

He didn’t get the trophy, but he made his impact on the game, leading all receivers with six catches for 61 yards. 

Kupp once said the journey was supposed to begin and end in L.A. It didn’t. It ended better.

As the confetti fell on the Seattle kid with Super Bowl dreams, Kupp stood with another trophy — a Lombardi — this one earned in a place that never needed convincing. The Rams made a business decision. Seattle made a football decision. 

Now the punctuation mark on the season is permanent, and it will forever be stamped in silver and blue.

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com