Rookie Puka Nacua has taken the NFL by storm through two weeks. Here's what to make of the Los Angeles Rams wideout and his role once Cooper Kupp returns from injured reserve.
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The early steal of the draft: Rams may have a gem in WR Puka Nacua
Puka Nacua is a fifth-round draft pick of the
Los Angeles Rams, the 20th receiver taken in the draft. He’s also the NFL’s leader in targets (33) and catches (25) through two weeks, and trails only
Justin Jefferson in yardage.
How did this happen, is Nacua for real and what happens when
Cooper Kupp returns from injured reserve to the Rams' offense?
Nacua had a good college career at BYU but never quite put together the kind of season that would have made him impossible to overlook by the NFL. His PFF grading over the final two seasons of his career was very good (84.2 and 89.8), but he recorded just 132 targets and 92 catches in the two campaigns combined. Those are totals eclipsed by multiple receivers in the 2023 NFL Draft in their final seasons alone.
In terms of grading, however, Nacua rivaled any of them. In fact, he had the best PFF grade of any receiver in the draft in their final seasons, but he played in only nine games and had significantly less opportunity.
Nacua generated 3.5 yards per route run in that final college season, more than any of the receivers drafted in front of him.
To cut a long story short, there were signs he was an excellent college receiver, but the numbers didn’t overwhelm you the way they did for some other prospects and required a bit more digging to unearth.
The Rams didn’t make it any easier to see his start coming because of the way the team treats preseason. Head coach Sean McVay arguably spearheaded the approach that is gathering momentum in the NFL to keep starters away from preseason games, deeming the risk of injury not worth the potential benefit of knocking the rust off those players before the regular season starts.
Many Rams starters don’t see a snap of preseason action, so Nacua’s relatively small workload and involvement in the offense didn’t give him a chance to forecast what was to come. Equally, he played just enough that his absence from the field entirely didn’t tip people off to just how important he was about to be to the team.
With Kupp out due to a hamstring injury, there’s certainly an element that the Rams simply lack any alternative targets. Through two games, Nacua and
Tutu Atwell account for 50 targets. No other Rams receiver has more than 11, and that’s running back
Kyren Williams.
Matthew Stafford has started the season looking back to his very best, and he’s firing the ball at whoever’s available, which, in this case, is Nacua and Atwell. That being said, Nacua has been justifying that confidence.
There has been little evidence of the rookie ever being on a different page from Stafford, something that can’t be said for some of the more established players on the team (for example,
Van Jefferson). Nacua has averaged 3.06 yards per route run despite an average depth of target just 7.9 yards downfield. Of his 266 receiving yards, 114 have come after the catch and 63 have come after contact, which leads the NFL.
That strength and willingness to maximize what’s there has been Nacua’s defining characteristic so far. His route running is solid and his understanding of both his own offense as well as opposing coverages is clearly good, but he has been squeezing every last yard out of each play with the ball in his hands.
When Kupp eventually returns from his hamstring injury, there is absolutely space for them to coexist within the same offense. In fact, they may end up complementing each other the way
Robert Woods and Kupp did in the same offense over the years.
For a couple of seasons, Woods and Kupp both racked up more than 1,000 yards including the postseason, before an injury to Woods opened the door for
Odell Beckham Jr. and caused the offense to solely focus on Kupp. In 2021, the ball was thrown his way 230 times including the postseason. But the previous year, Kupp had 126 targets and Woods tallied 135.
We tend to think of Kupp as the slot receiver and Woods as the perimeter threat, but over the two years when they operated most successfully as a duo, Kupp lined up out wide 38.4% of the time and Woods lined up in the slot on 37.9% of his snaps. Kupp was more likely to be in the slot on any given play and Woods lined up out wide, but they were interchangeable, and each spent at least one-third of their snaps in other alignments.
Through two games, Nacua has lined up in the slot 30.8% of the time, so he already neatly fits into that
Robert Woods deployment bucket that Kupp could seamlessly complement upon his return.
Even Atwell may not suffer significantly, as he splits his time more or less evenly across alignments and brings a speed element to the table that neither of the other two receivers excels at. Atwell’s role with Kupp back in the lineup most closely resembles that of what the team wanted
Van Jefferson to be in 2020 or
Brandin Cooks before that — a vertical speed complement to virtually unstoppable short and intermediate receivers underneath.
Nacua didn’t set multiple NFL records for production in his first two games by accident. He’s taking advantage of the opportunity that
Matthew Stafford is giving him and he’s capitalizing, adding his own value with his work after the catch.
The fact that he seems so far along mentally only enhances his credentials to maintain a significant role once Kupp returns to the offense. And that return shouldn’t see Nacua disappear from the stat sheet entirely. Right now, he is on pace for 280 targets and 212 catches over the season, which is clearly unsustainable, but it shows how much production is there to be more evenly distributed between Nacua and Kupp once the star receiver gets back on the field.
Nobody saw it coming, but the Rams may well have unearthed the steal of the draft in the fifth round, two rounds lower than they found Kupp in 2017.
