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The usual NFL player is starting his third season hoping for this “bissextile year”, a year when the next production stage will be taken to prove his value to his team, which will ultimately lead to a contract extension full of hope.
But there is also the rare group of third year players – those who have clearly been NFL stars from the start – that franchises would like to keep and continue to build around.
For the Rams of Los Angeles, it is the receiver Puka Nacua, the current leader of the NFL for the receptions (52) and the yards on reception (588) until week 5 of the 2025 campaign.
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Puka Nacua of Los Angeles Rams runs on the field during the second half of an NFL football match against the 49ers of San Francisco at Sofi Stadium on October 2, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Brooke Sutton/Getty Images)
Nacua burst into the stage in 2023, when he broke the record of all time for recruits on reception with 1,486 after capturing 105 quarters of the quarter Matthew Stafford. He was just under 1,000 yards in 2024 after injuries prevented him from playing for six games, but the third year star of Byu is once again in the elite category of recipients honoring the grill every week.
Nacua was a raw diamond when the Rams repeated it in the fifth round in 2023, but this diamond shines with a thousand lights in Los Angeles. And although he is not the typical third year player who hopes to take this step, Nacua told PK Press Club Digital that he had a similar state of mind.
It is essentially the basis of what he wants to do in the NFL.
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“One hundred percent,” replied Nacua, who also mentioned his new journey with Invisalign, when he was asked if he felt like he was just beginning. “I just think that the opportunity I have, I am lucky to be with great people. I am lucky to start my career with Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Sean Mcvay. It is the royalty of the NFL here, so the opportunity to improve me every day thanks to the people around me, it was such a revival of confidence and such motivation during the offseason.
“There is a statement to make for myself as to the improvement I can make every year, and it is fun to be able to go there and perform at the level at the moment, and to be on the same wavelength as Matthew because I think that our success-we are on the same wavelength at the moment and we have the capacity to continue to improve.”
Nacua knows that without his relationship with Stafford, statistics and records of the League would not be breathtaking. He also mentioned Kupp, the new Seattle Seahawks recipient, who was exchanged this offseason mainly due to the emergence of Nacua as the best team receiver.
But part of Kupp’s inheritance with the Rams continues in a fun meeting before training during the week they like to call “The Breakfast Club”. Stafford and Kupp met early every morning before the day of the match to prepare for their next opponent. Although there is no official invitation, Nacua began to get involved in this area during his first year, and he is now the Alpha receiver in the room alongside his teammates and coaches.
Matthew Stafford and Puka Nacua of Los Angeles Rams discuss in the first quarter of a match against the Texans from Houston to Sofi Stadium on September 7, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Harry comment/Getty Images)
“Being able to be there when Cooper is there in the morning, hearing the agreement and the communication that took place between these two. Now, the norm that has been set in front of me, I am in meetings now and I have this conversation with Matthew. It was so fun because even if it is football, I think it is the conversations that we have who do not concern football. The experience we have and the conversations that we have, I think that allows confidence and the simple fact of being human beings.
And you can’t look at what Nacua does this season without paying tribute to his new receiver counterpart, Davante Adams. Like Stafford, it is another dad girl who put blood, sweat and tears in this game and who knows what it takes to stand out from the rest of the pack.
Nacua quickly understood what type of impact Adams would have on his game.
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“He has such a different state of mind and mentality and the power with which he moves on the football field, you can feel it,” he said about Adams.
Nacua used to be the first to go during the exercises, but it quickly changed when Adams joined the fray.
“I asked him to be the number one that made the first representatives of all the exercises because I could feel when he went behind me,” said Nacua laughing. “I travel my routes and I say to myself: ‘You, the floor is shaking behind me.’ I try to look at his representatives to be able to learn.
Between the shooting of a film with Stafford and Mcvay and the impregnation of everything that Kupp and Adams were able to teach him simply by training and playing together, Nacua became one of the best in the game in his post.
For Nacua, this is only the beginning.
Puka Nacua of the Los Angeles Rams reacts to the second quarter against the Indianapolis colts at Sofi Stadium on September 28, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Be good, feel good, play well
The line above is the one Nacua tries to respect on the field, even if he enters his famous “dark place” on the day of the match.
But the Rams receiver describes himself as a “very energetic guy and smiling outside the field”, especially now that he started his aligners Invisalign at the start of the season. As he crushed him in the box for five weeks, he revealed that he had started to wear his ligners for five weeks.
“I’m in time right now, we’re staying attentive and they help me sleep well. They also give me a lot of confidence when I go on the field. I smile. I like to be an energetic guy and smiling outside the field. But on the football field, I think it looks pretty good when I’m mean.”
