Eye on the Opponent: Rams’ Receiver Puka Nacua Providing One of the Best Rookie Stories

Rams’ Receiver Puka Nacua has six 100-yard receiving performances this year, including three in his last four games.

The Los Angeles Rams are rolling offensively and at the right time as they head to East Rutherford to face the New York Giants in Week 17. While there are certainly a few players who could reap the credit for their run, none have been as incredible of a story as rookie wide receiver Puka Nacua.

For the past several seasons in Hollywood, the Rams have been known to rely on their veteran leader, Cooper Kupp, to be the difference maker in their competitive passing attack. Yet, this time, his novice teammate in Nacua has been the stud that’s getting all the attention for all the right reasons.

Drafted in the fifth round of the 2023 draft by the Rams, Nacua has taken off since entering the equation as a mixed wideout and inside slot receiver in head coach Sean McVay’s scheme. In 15 games for his professional debut, the 22-year-old has rallied 96 receptions for 1,327 yards, five touchdowns, and an average play of 13.8 yards to lead all Rams’ receivers.

Despite being a late-round flier out of BYU, the Rams have relied on Nacua from the jump to elevate their aerial arsenal, especially when Kupp missed a few games with injuries at the start of the season. He welcomed himself to the NFL by posting two consecutive 100+ yard performances with an average grab of 10.8 yards.

The potential rookie of the year candidate has since hauled in four more performances, with a touchdown in three of them, and has become one of the most targeted receivers in the entire league. Nacua sits ninth in the aforementioned stat, seventh in catches, and fourth in receiving yards, standing high atop any fellow rookies at the receiver position.

Depending on where the Rams line him up, Nacua can unload a diverse route tree that centers a lot on a short comeback, hitch, and slant routes to keep the team ahead of the sticks. He has good physicality to earn the extra yardage (average 5.3 yards after contact) and shiftiness to make defenders miss at the point of contact, meaning defenses can't sleep on his ability to become a full-field threat either.

The Rams typically turn to his teammate in Atwell to serve as more of the contested vertical weapon but aren’t afraid to rotate Nacua into that role with his gifted hands and ball protection. In those situations, his average distance from target has reached 9.7 yards, and he has been successful at landing the deep ball 43.5% of the time with only nine drops on any catches.

Occasionally, there will be one other element to Nacua’s role in the offense, specifically when the Rams deploy him on a jet sweep. The Giants have had some success with this using Wan’Dale Robinson in recent games, but it was an issue on the defensive end against the Eagles last Monday when Philadelphia burned them on a few plays due to poor tackling errors.

This could be Nacua’s best chance to create some damage on a Giants defense that has done well at silencing the opposing team’s top receivers in recent games. New York held A.J. Brown to six catches for 80 yards on Monday for a player with several 100+ yard performances on his resume this season.

In their three-game winning streak from Weeks 11 to 14, the Giants kept three consecutive No. 1 pass catchers to below 50 yards receiving and allowed them just one touchdown to force the onus on role players to make the plays. It’s hard to imagine that strategy stops on Sunday with Nacua lining up against Deonte Banks, who has done stellar against elite receivers in his tracks.

Regardless, the Giants enter this matchup ranked 18th in passing attempts, 20th in passing yards, and 23rd in average yards per throw. There will be plenty of opportunities for Nacua to leave his footprint on the game with a pass-heavy offense that slings it an average of 35 times per contest.

If a few runs come his way, the Giants have slipped toward the bottom of the NFL in significant categories amid injuries to their defensive line and the inability of the offense to control the time of possession. They’ll need to be on their game in both phases when Nacua is on the field, or the Rams could help their rookie’s highlight tape grow heading into his first potential licks at the postseason.

With two games left on their season, the Giants only want one story defining how they finish the 2023 campaign. Nacua has created one for himself in Los Angeles and will be looking to extend that to the East Coast. 

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