Why Rams' Cooper Kupp hates two home games in five days

Los Angeles Rams star wide receiver and Super Bowl LVI Most Valuable Player Cooper Kupp left no doubt while speaking with reporters on Tuesday that he isn't thrilled about playing on the SoFi Stadium turf twice in five days. 

"As you know, I hate it," Kupp explained, as shared by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. "I’m not a fan of turf in general and it’s obviously tough going back-to-back on a short week. But it is what it is. I know people are certainly aware of it. If there’s going to be change that’s going to come, it’s not because people don’t know, you know? So it is what it is." 

The Rams improved to 7-7 via this past Sunday's 28-20 home win over the Washington Commanders and next welcome the 7-7 New Orleans Saints to SoFi Stadium on Thursday night. Los Angeles holds the final NFC wild-card postseason berth heading into the prime-time matchup, and the ESPN Football Power Index gave the Rams a 54.2% chance to make the playoffs as of early Wednesday afternoon. 

Kupp is merely the latest NFL player this season to complain about having to compete on synthetic surfaces. Florio mentioned that "not a single current player has said, 'I prefer playing on turf because I can run faster, even if it takes me longer to get out of bed the next day.'" It's widely assumed team owners embrace turf because such surfaces are cheaper to maintain across seasons than all-grass fields.

"Like I said, it’s the same thing about playing Thursday night," Kupp added during his comments. "Everyone’s got to do it. Everyone’s got to get it done on turf and just part of this game and you got to deal with it."

It was reported in May 2021 that Amazon's 11-year agreement with the NFL for the rights to broadcast "Thursday Night Football" games is worth an average of $1.2B per year. Much like turf, "TNF" isn't going anywhere anytime soon regardless of what players, analysts and fans think about those subjects.