100 Questions: Fantasy Football 2024 (Los Angeles Rams)

As we head toward the start of the 2024 NFL and fantasy football season, FTN Fantasy editor-in-chief Daniel Kelley is asking (and attempting to answer) the 100 most pressing questions in fantasy football. This is 100 Questions. Today: The Los Angeles Rams.

The thing about Super Bowl winners is that yes, they reached their 90% (or higher) percentile outcome and are likely to regress, but also, you have to be a good team to win the Super Bowl. The average winning percentage of a Super Bowl champion is .781, but then their average Year+1 winning percentage is .671, and even their Y+2 is .618. There are only two Super Bowl winners in NFL history who went from a Super Bowl title to fewer than 6 wins the next season, and one of those (the 1981-1982 San Francisco 49ers) did it in large part because they only got 9 games in 1982 due to the strike. They went 3-6, so maybe they wouldn’t have gotten there anyway, but still, that’s a weird situation.

Which means, as a practical matter, that the 2021-2022 Rams stand alone. They went 12-5 in the 2021 season en route to a Super Bowl title, then collapsed to 5-12 in 2022, the kind of collapse that had people wondering if their coach (Sean McVay), quarterback (Matthew Stafford) and Hall of Fame defensive player (Aaron Donald) might all walk away.

Instead, all three returned. And remember how I started this section: Super Bowl winners are very rarely complete flukes. So even after a disaster 2022, the Rams used a strong core and a successful rookie campaign to get back to the postseason last year. Only three Super Bowl teams have had a bigger winning percentage jump from Y+1 to Y+2, and again, one of those came because of the 1982 strike season.

Water finds its level, and it appears the modern Rams’ level is “Yeah, they’re pretty darn good.”

The Questions

59. Can Puka Do It Again?
60. Can Kyren Do It Again?
61. Can Kupp Do It Again?

100 Questions for 2024: Los Angeles Rams

Can Puka Do It Again?

You’ll notice a theme in the Rams’ questions, and it’s because exactly how good the team’s stars are is one heck of a good question. We’ll start with Puka Nacua, who went from fifth-round afterthought to the PPR WR4, the records for most receptions by a rookie (105), receiving yards by a rookie (1,486) and receiving yards by a rookie in a playoff game (181) and a second-place finish in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting.

Here’s where I brag a bit:

https://twitter.com/danieltkelley/status/1662099340217798656

My answer was yes, a rookie can be a breakout, so long as it's not, like, Bijan Robinson or something. For me, a breakout is anyone who crushes expectations in a way that takes them from irrelevant to relevant. If Puka Nacua is good this year (he will be), that's a breakout, IMO. https://t.co/4IrrzfpfO6

— Daniel Kelley (@danieltkelley) July 14, 2023

Anyway, what scares me about Puka for 2024 is that we are already on the Puka Cycle. Because for all his many virtues, Nacua was on the injury report a lot. He would have a great game, come up lame with something, freak everyone out, then come back healthy and do it all over again. That’s just about the best possible way to endear yourself to fans, but it’s also the kind of thing that will catch up to a player eventually. Nacua doesn’t shy away from contact. That’s charming as hell. It’s also going to cost him time at some point. And the fact that it’s already happening in training camp (he went down with a knee issue that turned out to be a burst bursa sac, not expected to cost him Week 1) isn’t reassuring.

Also not reassuring: Talk out of camp that Cooper Kupp is taking charge of this offense. I’ll believe that’s a full re-transition when I see it, but it is worth being aware of. Add it all up, and while I wouldn’t be at all upset if Puka Nacua is my fantasy team’s WR1 in 2024, his current ADP (WR7) is a bit out over its skis.

Can Kyren Do It Again?

CINCINNATI, OH - SEPTEMBER 25: Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams (23) in a game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals at Paycor Stadium on Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. (Photo by Jeff Moreland/Icon Sportswire) — CINCINNATI, OH – SEPTEMBER 25: Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams (23) in a game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals at Paycor Stadium on Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. (Photo by Jeff Moreland/Icon Sportswire)

This time a year ago, Cam Akers was supposed to be the RB1 in Los Angeles, and Kyren Williams was so lightly thought of that our own Dan Fornek ranked him as literally the No. 32 handcuff in the league. And lest you think we’re just dumb around here, I found a long Reddit thread attempting to identify the best handcuffs for 2023 and Kyren Williams’ name is mentioned in it exactly zero times. Suffice it to say no one saw “1,350 scrimmage yards, 15 total touchdowns and an RB7 finish despite missing five games” coming. By PPR points per game, Williams was the only running back within 4.5 points of Christian McCaffrey.

Williams is small (5-foot-9, 194 pounds) and was slow entering the league (4.65-second 40 time). But he topped a 90% snap rate five times in 12 games, topped 75% nine times. Two of the three exceptions were Week 1 (when Akers was the starter) and Week 12 (his first game back from an extended injury absence).

Of course, the Rams drafted Blake Corum this offseason, and Corum is basically Kyren Williams in a Michigan shirt. McVay has a history of leaning on one back, which in theory bodes well for Williams, but he also has a history of not having two running backs with such similar skillsets and a starter with a troubling injury history. After selecting Corum in the third round in April, we got words from the Rams that they didn’t want to “totally run down” Williams (GM Les Snead), that using both guys with similar skills lets McVay “stay in the rhythm and how he calls the game” (RB coach Ron Gould) and that “obviously” it wouldn’t be good for Williams to take very carry (Williams himself).

Translation: Williams is still the RB1 in Los Angeles, and that role has a high fantasy upside. But given Williams’ injury history and the fact that the team spent a third-rounder on Corum, we can expect Williams to crack the 90% snap rate far less often in 2024, maybe zero times. And without that, he doesn’t have the “RB1 or close to it” ceiling he had last year and is more like a back-of-the-top-10 fantasy option.

Can Kupp Do It Again?

INGLEWOOD, CA - JANUARY 01: Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp (10) stands on the sideline during an NFL regular season game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers on January 01, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA. (Photo by Brandon Sloter/Icon Sportswire) — INGLEWOOD, CA – JANUARY 01: Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp (10) stands on the sideline during an NFL regular season game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers on January 01, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA. (Photo by Brandon Sloter/Icon Sportswire)

The first two questions for the Rams are about breakout stars from last year continuing their out-of-nowhere success. This one is obviously different. But in the 2021 season, Cooper Kupp put up the most PPR points from a receiver ever, leading the league in receptions (145), receiving yards (1,947) and touchdowns (16). In the two years since, he’s not reached any of those numbers combined, totaling 134 receptions, 1,549 yards and 11 touchdowns while missing 13 of a possible 34 games. So when I ask if Kupp can do it “again,” I’m asking if he can even sniff at that 2021 season, or if he’s more like the guy from last year who was a fringe top-25 guy in points per game.

The first question is how reduced Kupp was, really. Yeah, he only averaged 13.7 PPR points per game last year. That includes 2.1 points in Week 11, when he left after only 18 snaps with a hurt ankle, and 4.8 in Week 12, when he was clearly hobbled by that same injury. It includes a 2-48-0 on 7 targets in Week 9 when the Rams had to roll with Brett Rypien and only put up 3 points. Those count just the same, but just for the sake of this exercise, if you take those games out, Kupp’s PPG shoots up to 16.7, a top-10 number, and he had over 110 yards in four of nine games and scored 5 touchdowns. He had at least 6 targets in every one of his healthy games (all but Weeks 11 and 12), averaging 8.9 targets in those games.

No, maybe Kupp is never going to be “the best wide receiver in fantasy history” again, and Puka Nacua is better than any positionmate he’s had the last few years. But any look at his 2023 numbers is going to paint an artificially modest picture of his season. He’s still an elite receiver and — particularly if Nacua’s current injury or any future injuries keep him from the field for any length of time — an absolute stone-cold bargain at WR19 in drafts.