Why Puka Nakua is setting NFL records

[jap]

He talks about Puka's route running is ok but isn't great. But he's still making plays. Imagine how good he can be when he learns more things from Kupp. Kupp is 30 now. Not sure how many more years he's got. But its looking like we have his replacement for the next 8-10 years.

I was thinking about what are they gonna do with the passing game when the time comes for Kupp to hang it up. Now it appears we have the answer to that.

 We are getting sperm contributions from AD, Matthew, and Cooper as we chat and targeting healthy host female incubators for a new generation of Horns. McSnead's work is never done!

 

[Kupped]

Puca...

Leads the league in receptions with 39
Second in yards with 501
3rd in catches over 20 yards with 9
3rd in the NFL in YAC with 168.

All those numbers would be good for a rookie drafted in the 5th round for an ENTIRE SEASON.

He's just ridiculous. I absolutely CANNOT WAIT to see him on the field at the same time as Kupp. Damn!!!

I daresay it will be closer to how the Rams looked with OBJ than with Woods. I mean to shade to Bobby Trees... but Puca may very well be better already.

 

[RAMSinLA]

He is a member of the Breakfast club

 

[Corbin]

Puca...

Leads the league in receptions with 39
Second in yards with 501
3rd in catches over 20 yards with 9
3rd in the NFL in YAC with 168.

All those numbers would be good for a rookie drafted in the 5th round for an ENTIRE SEASON.

He's just ridiculous. I absolutely CANNOT WAIT to see him on the field at the same time as Kupp. Damn!!!

I daresay it will be closer to how the Rams looked with OBJ than with Woods. I mean to shade to Bobby Trees... but Puca may very well be better already.

Going to have to change your name to “ Puca’d” lol

 

[RAMSinLA]

View: https://youtu.be/rhArlEYDVV4

 

[AvengerRam]

Crazy Puka stat…

First 4 WRs taken (all in Round 1): Jackson Smith-Njigba (plays tonight), Quinton Johnson, Zay Flowers, Jordan Addison: 530 combined yards receiving.

Puka: 501 yards receiving.

 

[thirteen28]

You know, if Puka had half the number of receptions and half the number of yards that he's currently racked up, I'd be really happy right now. His performance so far is ridiculous for us, in an obviously very good way.

 

[muggmeister]

Hell, he's got more receiving yards than the top 4 Patriots WRs combined, 501-483, fuck Belicheat, whiny bitch Mac Jones, just fuck em all.

 

[El Chapo Jr]

I think its safe to say we hit the WR jackpot with Puka. He's putting up league best numbers after 4 weeks. I'm talking about outdoing any NFL star WR you can think of. All for a 5th round pick, fuckin crazy. I think this offense is going to shift to another gear with him and Kupp. We've got another deadly weapon.

 

[dieterbrock]

Jerry Rice had 927 yards and 3 TD's in his rookie season.
Puka ought to have that covered by what, the bye week?

 

[thirteen28]

I think its safe to say we hit the WR jackpot with Puka. He's putting up league best numbers after 4 weeks. I'm talking about outdoing any NFL star WR you can think of. All for a 5th round pick, fuckin crazy. I think this offense is going to shift to another gear with him and Kupp. We've got another deadly weapon.

We don’t have to say “Puka is going to be really good.” We can already say “Puka IS really good.”

 

[dang]

Puca...

Leads the league in receptions with 39
Second in yards with 501
3rd in catches over 20 yards with 9
3rd in the NFL in YAC with 168.

All those numbers would be good for a rookie drafted in the 5th round for an ENTIRE SEASON.

He's just ridiculous. I absolutely CANNOT WAIT to see him on the field at the same time as Kupp. Damn!!!

I daresay it will be closer to how the Rams looked with OBJ than with Woods. I mean to shade to Bobby Trees... but Puca may very well be better already.

Apples and Oranges comparing Trees to Nacua.

 

[Kupped]

Apples and Oranges comparing Trees to Nacua.

Why?

 

[AvengerRam]

View: https://x.com/nfl_dovkleiman/status/1709023307280883897?s=46

 

[Selassie I]

My magic Puka necklace being looked after by Kane.

 

[AvengerRam]

If you Google Puka Nacua and Senior Bowl, you’ll find that his practice reviews early in the week, before he was sidelined with a minor injury, were highly favorable. Shows, once again, how valuable those practices can be in finding NFL-ready players.

 

[snackdaddy]

My guess is like Kupp he didn't run a fast 40 time. Some guys just aren't track sprinters. But plenty fast enough in pads. Too many get enamored with those 40 yard dashes. I'm glad McVay and Snead look at more than just that 40 time.

 

[RamFan503]

The early steal of the draft: Rams may have a gem in WR Puka Nacua

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.

www.pff.com

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.

Good write up.

 

[norcalramfan]

My guess is like Kupp he didn't run a fast 40 time. Some guys just aren't track sprinters. But plenty fast enough in pads. Too many get enamored with those 40 yard dashes. I'm glad McVay and Snead look at more than just that 40 time.

I just posted a PFF vid in the media fallout thread. They say Puka measures in the 90th percentile for game speed.

 

[badnews]

The Coopa Kuppua and Pooper Nupp duo are going to shit all over opposing D's....
A 3rd and a 5th round pick. Both have set production records in the NFL.

Rams scouting department, McVays coaching and the arm talent of Mathew fucking Stafford all deserve some credit....