Cooper Kupp wore No. 10 during his record-setting career at Eastern Washington, then again for the past five seasons of his NFL career, including the 2021 season in which he was named AP Offensive Player of the Year, first-team All-Pro and eventually Super Bowl MVP.
So that number obviously has significance to him, and not just because Ten is also the name of the first and most successful album of Seattle band Pearl Jam, who Kupp was supporting with a vintage concert T-shirt on Tuesday when he signed with the Seahawks. But for Kupp to wear No. 10 in Seattle, he was going to have to convince outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu to give it up.
To make that happen, Kupp and Nwosu came to an agreement in which Nwosu gave up No. 10 in exchange for Kupp making a donation to the Uchenna Nwosu Foundation. Thanks to that donation, Kupp will get No. 10, while Nwosu will switch to No. 7, the number he wore at Narbonne High School.
"He's got a foundation that's doing some really good stuff here in the community, and it was important for him that that be part of this change," Kupp said. "He was great to work with, and I was able to donate to his foundation and make sure that he felt good about that. He mentioned he's played his best football in No. 10, and it had been important to him, and just his time in Seattle. And just clearly the community was an important part of this whole thing, so I respect his desires there, and we were able to work it out, and really thankful for him being able to work something out for us."