The Ringer NFL Show - Why Puka Nacua Is Setting NFL Records | The Play Sheet [VIDEO]

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

The Ringer’s Ben Solak breaks down how the Los Angeles Rams are using rookie wide receiver Puka Nacua, why it’s resulting in Puka setting NFL rookie records, and how Puka will be affected (or not affected) when star pass catcher Cooper Kupp returns from injury for L.A. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Howdy. I'm Ben Solac. This is the play sheet. The opening script. All the rookies are pretty good. Two weeks in, and I'm willing to call it. The 2023 NFL draft class is the best one we've ever seen. Not really, but it's been good. Texans quarterback CJ Stroud and Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson have both been great. Richardson had to leave week two with a concussion, which sucks, but he's looked like way more pro-ready than anybody thought he would.

And Stroud, Stroud looks accurate and decisive and aggressive. There have been good plays on Stroud's film. Look at that throat. Look at when he releases this. nice. And where Nico Collins is and where that lineback is. That's a throw. Then there's non-quarterback. It's like Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter. Go birds. Carter's got 11 pressures on the season, which is first among all defensive tackles right now. And he's got 10 hurries, which is tied for first among all defensive linemen right now. That includes edge rushers. And then there's Bejohn

Robinson, the running back out of Texas, who the Falcons took at eight overall. Bejohn is third in the league right now in rushing yards over expectation per attempt. He's got 10 rushes with at least four yards after contact. He had 172 yards from scrimmage, which is like a top 20 number for any player in their first two games of their career, and he just looks so good. Zayflowers looks nice, Jordan Addison looks nice. Will Anderson, look real nice. Christian Gonzalez, Manny Forbes, good. Everybody's looking good, but nobody looks better than Pooka and Akua. If you didn't know who Pooka Nakua was during the pre-draft process, that's okay. He wasn't super productive at BYU. He wasn't super huge at the combine. He didn't test. He tested at his pro day.

It wasn't that great. He was at the senior bowl, but the senior bowl tends to be like for middle round receivers to try to bust into day two. And he didn't shine necessarily there. He ended up being the last pick of the fifth round, 177th overall to the Los Angeles Rams. If you don't know who Pooka Nakua is now, that's on you. Nakuwa has set multiple receiving records in just two games as a rookie. He has the total receptions over two-game record at 25. He has the single-game record at 15. He is the first player to start his career with consecutive 10-catch-a-hundred-yard performances. Again, this guy had 107 catches in four years of college, and in two games as a professional, he's got 25.

All of this begs the question. How'd this cat end up in the fifth round, and how's he doing this now? And to answer that, we go to play action. The thing that you're seeing the Rams do a lot this year is they're going to motion a lot into dachson bunches. We're going to see that like all over this film. And they're going to be motioning Higby and they're going to be motioning Tutu Atwell, who's very fast. And Nukua is going to be the guy like on the line of scrimmage. It's going to be the point man. And typically like when the dolphins do all this motion, for example, they're doing it to throw the ball to this guy.

They're doing it to like throw the ball to Tyree Kill to prevent him from being pressed. The Rams are just thrown into Nakuwa. And the route that they're getting him on the most is this like 10, 12 yard stop route where he just kind of sits down in space. And the best thing you can say about Nakua through two weeks. The reason why he's done so well at this is he's super QB friendly. And he's always where he's supposed to be. He's a reliable catcher. And what I really like is how quickly he gets his eyes back to the quarterback.

We see that on this play. So we're in a motion, Higby, and snap the football. There's the stop route. Nicole, he knows he's going to get tapped here right by the linebacker. He knows he's going to get a little bit of a bump. So he extends his arm, make sure that he has positioning. And then even as he's settling into the route just now, like he's just starting to slow down his momentum.

Look at his eyes. Snap back, right? snap back to Stafford. It's not the cleanest stop. See how it takes him a couple steps to settle down. And we're going to talk about Nakua's route running a little bit later. But it doesn't matter that it's not clean because he's got a little bit of a cushion and he gets his eyes right back. Which means Stafford can just tattoo him with this ball and he makes a nice catch.

Now, after the catch, watch what his eyes do again, right? So here comes the ball. He looks into his hands. But the second he's got it, his eyes flip back around again, right? His helmet turns to see where that corner is. And that's, that's, Nukua's like weirdly good. after the catch. The thing that he does the most that reminds me of Cooper Cup is being good after the catch without like looking like a guy who's supposed to be good after the catch. And it's

going to get good anticipation. He's got good spatial awareness, right? So he's going to flip his head. All right. I see where the corner is coming in from. I can extend an arm. And I can kind of get around him. He doesn't really break tackles Nakua does, but he survives contact really well. And so stick that arm out, flip around and pick up some dirty yardage. That's like, that's like an unspectacular play. But that's what Nakua is doing that's really good. And critically, like, the other receivers who could have had a chance to become Nakuwa over the course the last couple years with Stafford, like Van Jefferson, 2-2-Atwell, Ben Scaronic, those players weren't, like, trustworthy.

They weren't reliable. They weren't consistent. And Nukuah is, like, immediately earning Matthew Stafford's trust. All right. So we're in a stack again. Pug is in the front. We've got a press man, right? Now, again, Pugga's been running this route, like, a lot.

Which the Seahawks don't know this yet. It's the fourth quarter of the first game. But this is the route that they've been working in this area of the field. If you're going to develop in a more of a receiver, though, you have to be able to run other breaking routes off of this stems. You have to be able to run like this dig and run this out cut. And it's the out cut that they get on this play. Again, we go motion, right?

This time we snap it right when two outwell gets into the bunch. And what's cool about that is watch it move this corner, right? Initially, press man coverage. Now the Seahawks are trying to communicate this motion and a little bit of uncertainty here. And all of a sudden, Pook has got a free inside release. And this is a mandatory inside release. He's got to go inside, right? Get some of the switch action.

And now with this corner inside leverage, safety on top of you, you have to get around that corner and into the sideline on the flag route. And Stafford, this is a trust ball, right? When Stafford releases this, this is not a pretty picture. He's trusting that two, two is going to pull him away. And then Nakua, look at the, look at the arm, generate a little separation. It's going to be able to make this catch. Difficult catch. Two feet in bounds.

Now, the funny thing about all Puka's production is that he's not like great at running. routes, which sounds like a crazy thing to say for someone who's 25 catchers over two games. But he isn't. He's got, this is where he was raw coming out of college. He's got, like, work to do on this. And that's actually good news. Because when a guy is 25 catches over two games and is not that great at running routes yet, think about how many catches he could have he's good at running routes.

We're going to get the same look as we've been getting, right? They're going to motion Tutu at well, this is Pukinak and Akua here in the slot. They're going to motion him to the stack and then they're going to release, right? Like I said, we've been living on these 10-yard stems. We've seen him on the curl. We've seen him on the flag. Now he's going to run this dig, right? Now, we're just going to run it.

And watch how easily this gets covered up here. I mean, the corner is right on it, right? He's on it the entire way, undercuts the window and complete pass. Why did the corner get on that so successfully? When we play it slowly, I want you to watch Pook his shoulders in his chest, right? When he comes off the line, see how he's in this down running position, right? When you come off the line in your stem, you want to threaten that you're going vertical at all times. You always want to sell like, hey, I'm coming up field.

coming up fast. So that's what Pook is doing right now. But as he gets downfield, see how his chest comes upright? Like look at the body planning right here. See how far his shoulders are ahead of his hips. His hips are ahead of his toes. And then when we get five yards down the field, see how the shoulders have gotten now just directly on top of the hips and the hips are just directly on top of the feet? He's showing to the corner right here. Hey, I'm decelerating. And I'm about to break. Right? When you run this route, and we'll run it at full speed now, you want to look like you're flying downfield the whole time before the last minute you snap this route off. So watch the chest and the shoulders come up and it telegraphs to that corner like, hey, I'm about to break on this route. Now,

flips his head real fast. There's still a throwing window here. Snaffer gets pressured and the balls behind. So it's not like it's Puka's total his fault that this is incomplete, but it's a no on his route running and we see it in other spots on his film. This play makes me laugh. Very funny play. Pooka's up here. There's no motion this time. He's just straight running the dig. Get to the top of the route. This is a very like college, college move right here, right? Like this little stutter step and then flip your head one way. Tolano Hufanga is never buying this, like not even once. And you have the bracket right here, right?

So it's best to just get into this cut. Ball arrives directly on his hands, right? I mean, Stafford, this is like late in the game and they're trying to score two, they're going to score on two possessions and get back into a two score game. Like, this is like a late rep. It's not a super meaningful rep. But at the same time, got to catch the football, right? And you're going to be further away from Hufanga and it's going to be an easier

throw if we're not wasting time here at the top of the route, right? This is never going to help us. All that conversation brings us to this play in which Puka's running, the 12-yard stop. Right. It's just this is the money route for him. The back's coming out. I think the back is trying to pretend like he has an option route, but it's actually a mandatory outside cut.

And then they've got just like a little like three-man concept here to this side. But Pooka right here. Like you could go and work this three-receiver side. You can go work this strong side if you want. Fred Warner heads over there and the numbers aren't great. And Stafford the whole time is just backside. Like the whole time he's like, I want these matchups right here. And look where the back is relative to Trey Greenlaw.

Like, if you're working this backside legitimately, like I would be throwing this right now. And he wants to throw puka on the stop route with a corner who's right there. So like, Stafford wants to throw the ball to this cat. Like, I'm positive he does. You don't get 35 targets over two games, less a quarterback wants to throw it to anyway. But he really likes throwing it to Puka. Now, like you said, Puka, not the best route runner.

And so watch, like he does that he has this big step to kill his momentum, right? That huge leap step right there to kill his momentum. And then he kind of stumbles and, like, loses his footing, like doesn't come out of the brake clean. And so it's okay. Like, our route running's not perfect. You also can watch Stafford in the pocket. And the timing of the route's not perfect, right?

Here's the back foot. and then he has to pad the baby and then throw, right? There's that little, like, false step, little false start of the throwing motion because the timing's not exactly right. Like, he wants puka already be turned, then he isn't, so he has to take an extra beat. So, like, the route wasn't great on this play,

and I don't even think the timing was right, which is totally fine for, like, second week of the season, he's a rookie receiver. Look at that catch. This is a very tough catch, right? Look at his momentum is bringing him to the middle of the field. He has to flip his hips all the way around and go catch this in his back pocket.

And he does. And so when we start to try to answer the question, why is Puka producing like this? One, the quarterback trusts him. And you earn trust on plays like this where like not everything is neat. Like it's not the tidiest play, but you still pay the quarterback off at the first down. And two, there's a lot of room for improvement on Puka. Like he's had these productive weeks and so you're going to keep throwing in the football. But it's also really easy to go to the film room and say like, hey, we just got to like clean up some route stuff.

We have to get a little bit smarter with our feet. And we could be doing even better than this. So Puka Nakua has earned Matthew Stafford's trust. It's cool, it's sick, he's producing, is awesome. But the question that everybody wants answered is, can he keep doing this? Will he keep doing this? When Star Wide Receiver, Cooper Cup comes back from Indrae. The short and immediate answer is that Nakua can't keep producing like this, period.

Puka currently accounts for 39.3% of the Rams total target share, which is an astronomically high number. Last season, Devonty Adams led the league at 32%. With 35 targets in two games, Nakua is on pace. for 297.5 targets, which would shatter. It would blow out of the water the current NFL record of 208, which is not important right now. But Rob Moore had 208 targets in a season where he only caught 48%. That's bananas. They should have stopped throwing it to Rob Moore. Anyway, Nukua couldn't even keep this up if Cup never came back, but Cup's going to come back and his role is inherently going to take a hit. Some of those targets are going to be redistributed to

Cup and rightfully so. The nice thing, is that their roles actually don't overlap as much as maybe you'd think. Yes, they're both like shallow depth of target players, kind of work more in the underneath area of the field. And yes, their greatest strengths are similar. They're both really QB friendly. They have like some tough yak to them. But the roles are very different.

Here's a look at snap rate, just like where a receiver lined up. When Matthew Stafford was the quarterback of Los Angeles Rams over the last three seasons. Cup has been the primary slot receiver, Nukua has been primarily an outside receiver. When we look at where a player earns their targets, the disparity is even bigger.

Cup earns more than three times as many of his targets when running around from the slot than Nakua does. All of this data should be taken with a grain of salt. We're like two weeks in to Nakua's career, and there's no way that, like, he's been so good at outside receiver that the Rams aren't going to be like, maybe we should try him in the slot. Like, you're going to continue to do different stuff this season.

But the routes that they've been targeting Nakua on are also different than the Cup routes. Historically, the staple route of the McVeigh-passing offense has been the crossing route. Guess which receiver has just like, not run crossing routes, Puganakuwa. They've replaced those routes with slant routes, which McVeigh never ran and has now gotten a lot of in his offense

for the success of Pukanakuwa. Again, we don't have enough data to say this for two weeks in, but it feels like, and it looks like there's a little bit of like a curated role for Nekua. There was an idea in the off season. There was a moment where McVeigh and the offense of coaching staff sat down and said, okay, if Pooka Nakua is to be successful, like what we're seeing, seems talented. What's the best role for him?

And then they found a way to establish that role in the offense, even though it wasn't intuitive, even though it wasn't a pre-established role. Like, he's doing some of the Robert Wood stuff and some of the Cooper Cup stuff. But really, he's kind of doing like the Pooka and Akua stuff. That right there is what makes me feel good about Nakua when Cup comes back. Because the Rams know how to make Cooper Cup work.

They've been doing that for a while. And they also know how to make Pooka Kua work. They've been doing that for the last two weeks. And there's some Venn diagram overlap, but there's not too much. And you can pick your spots for cup. and you can also pick your spots for Nakuwa. So when Cup returns, Nukuwa's role will diminish, and rightfully so.

He means freaking Cooper Cup. But that won't change the fact that McVeigh knows how to use Nukua, and it won't change the fact that Nekua has earned Stafford's trust very quickly and paid him off with good performances. It won't change the fact that Nukuwa is now like a staple part of the Rams passing game. Now that'll do it. For us today on the play sheet, week two episode, pretty good. Thank you to Ritchie Bozik for producing the episode.

He's great at that. Thank you to Kuku Nakua. Pukanukuoka and rookies and you. Thank you for listening and watching and click the videos and subscribe to the channel.