On Sunday evening, the Seattle Seahawks punched their ticket to the Super Bowl with a thrilling home win over the Los Angeles Rams. This was a back and forth game throughout, with Sam Darnold and the Seattle offense ultimately converting enough third and long situations to secure the win.
Although he didn't have an eye-popping stat line, former Rams and current Seahawks wide receiver Cooper Kupp made some key plays for Seattle in this one, including hauling in a touchdown pass.
However, on one play late in the third quarter, Kupp described being mad at himself for reaching the ball over to the first down marker, which he called a “cardinal sin.”
“That’s a cardinal sin,” Kupp said after the game, per Mike Florio of NBC Sports' Pro Football Talk. “You don’t do that on third down. But I felt good about where I was at holding the ball and I also felt like based on how my momentum was going, where the DB was, how my body position was the only chance I had was to try to reach that thing out. I wasn’t concerned about the ball coming out. I knew the ground had forced the ball out, so weren’t concerns about that. The spot, I knew it was close.”
The play was a controversial one, with many Rams fans feeling that Kupp did not gain the necessary yardage to convert the first down, but it ended up working in the Seahawks' favor.
“You never reach on third down,” Kupp added. “Fourth down, end of game, last play of the game where it’s fourth down, that’s where you can reach. On third down it’s because of that.”
Kupp will likely apply that knowledge if he is in a similar situation in the Super Bowl, which will take place on February 6 against the New England Patriots in San Francisco.
