by Jeremy Park
With the first two weeks of the 2022-2023 NFL season underway, players have already started making an impact for their teams. Here are three offensive players that have made their impact so far.
Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp has picked up right where he left off last season. After a magical, record-breaking 2021-2022 season in which he nearly eclipsed the 2,000 receiving yards mark, consensus was that the reigning Super Bowl MVP would naturally regress in production. The 29 year-old has had other plans so far. In just two games, Kupp has totaled 24 catches (league leader) for 236 yards (third in league) and three touchdowns (tied for league lead). Quarterback Matthew Stafford’s favorite target hasn’t lost a step just yet, and will continue to dominate opposing defenses this season.
Amon-Ra St. Brown, the sophomore wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, is coming off of a late season surge from last year, for which in the final six games, caught 51 passes for 560 yards and five touchdowns. In the first two games this year, he’s looked even better. In Detroit’s second game against the Washington Commanders, he exploded for nine catches, 116 yards, and two touchdowns, along with two rushing attempts for 68 yards. Keep an eye on St. Brown as he continues to be an energy source for the Lions offense.
Tyreek Hill
Many wrote off the fastest man in the league after an off-season trade to the Miami Dolphins. While to be completely fair, the quarterback switch from Patrick Mahomes to Tua Tagovailoa is a massive dropoff, Hill is still the same playmaker he was in Kansas City. Amazing statlines are normal for him, and it showed last Sunday, with Hill totaling 11 catches, 190 yards, and two touchdowns in a win against Baltimore. Perhaps we were all wrong about the 28-year old receiver, who will no doubt continue his production for an exciting Dolphins offense.
Bonus:
Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s six-touchdown performance will not go overlooked. Although this can be easily excused by the addition of Tyreek Hill or the two interceptions he threw, nobody was expecting this kind of Tua this year, except Tyreek Hill himself, who raved nonstop about the young quarterback during the offseason. It appears that Tagovailoa is finally reaching the potential that the Dolphins saw on draft night in 2020 when they took him 5th overall.