Cooper Kupp’s tepid response to trade rumors makes a move feel even more likely

With DeAndre Hopkins off the board to the Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL trade deadline still more than a week away, everyone's attention now turns to which big-name receiver might be dealt next. And in recent days a new name has vaulted toward the top of that list: Los Angeles Rams star Cooper Kupp.

With a 2-4 record, an aging quarterback and one of the worst defenses in the NFL, it's time for the Rams to turn toward the future. And it increasingly seems like that might include trading Kupp: The former All-Pro is now 31, with just two years remaining on his contract, and has seen his production decline considerably amid injuries over the past couple of seasons. As he gets set to return from an ankle sprain in Week 8, reports have begun to swirl that the Rams might be looking to see what they can get for a player who doesn't figure to be part of a potential rebuild.

It's still unclear how much fire there is behind all the smoke, but we got our best confirmation yet that a Kupp trade is very much on the table for L.A. — and all we had to do was listen to Kupp himself.

Cooper Kupp doesn't shoot down speculation ahead of NFL trade deadline

Kupp didn't outright confirm that a deal was in the works. But he also sounded very much like a man who knows there's a good chance he'll be wearing another uniform in a couple of weeks time.

"I’m aware of it, but at the end of the day I’m going to be where my feet are," Kupp told reporters on Wednesday. "That’s all I know ... For seven and a half years, I've been an L.A. Ram and I've taken that approach every single day. And whatever happens outside of that, I gotta control what I can control and right now that means being the best L.A. Ram that I can be."

Of course, it's possible that Kupp's simply responding to the same chatter that everyone else has heard over the past few days. But it stands to reason that a player of Kupp's status within the Rams organization would at the very least be looped into trade talks as a courtesy, if only to prepare himself and his family for an eventual move. If the Rams had offered assurances to Kupp that they weren't thinking of dealing him, his answer likely would've sounded a lot different than the tone of resignation above. On the contrary, this sounds like a player who knows that he's on the trading block, and who's trying to ignore the noise as best he can until he has something concrete to go off of.