LOS ANGELES — Puka Nacua can remember when he and Davis Allen got the text message. The two then-rookies were staying in the team hotel, freshly drafted by the Rams and transitioning to their new situations, when quarterback Matthew Stafford texted them in a group chat asking to set up time to throw to his new pass catchers.
“Being like, ‘Holy cow, I gotta go run the best routes of my life,’” Nacua recalled.
Those nerves of working with the Super Bowl-winning quarterback carried over to their first throwing session. As Stafford explained how he wanted Nacua to run a route, the young receiver told the veteran, “Yes, sir.”
“He’s like, ‘Don’t call me sir,’” Nacua said, chuckling at his younger self. “I’m like, I already messed up. We already started on a bad track.”
Three years later, Stafford didn’t remember being called “sir.” But Nacua’s nerves were obvious during that first meeting.
“He might have thrown up a couple of times here or there after some routes,” Stafford said with a fond grin.
Three years into their partnership, the novelty might have worn off, but the results are stronger than ever.
Even after missing a game-and-a-half with an ankle injury, Nacua is second in the NFL in receptions (54) and fourth in receiving yards (616). A year after leading the NFL in yards per route run, he’s second this season with 3.42. Stafford – who is putting up some of the best numbers of his decorated career – has a 117.2 NFL passer rating when targeting Nacua this season, which would mark a high for this duo if it holds up at the end of the campaign.
The ease with which Stafford and Nacua have put this start to the season may seem like a progression from that first meeting in the spring of 2024, but Stafford could see something in Nacua even then.
“You could tell the physicality was going to come out once the pads came on, even with nothing on, no pads, nothing, just running shorts and a T-shirt. It was evident. There was a willingness to learn,” Stafford said. “I was pleasantly surprised with the late-round draft pick that we had that seemed like he was going to be a pretty decent player. He’s turned into a good one.”
Even as Stafford lavished praise on Nacua ahead of his rookie season, the receiver wasn’t sure he had earned the quarterback’s trust. He had yet to prove anything in a true game setting, and in the receiver lines at practice Stafford still did not throw to the rookie, preserving his warmups for more trusted options like Tyler Higbee and Van Jefferson.
But that changed during the second target of Nacua’s first game. It was a run-pass option that required the rookie to make a choice on his route depending on how he read the defense.
“I just remember feeling like, ‘Oh, I should probably scoot away from this guy.’ The ball was like exactly where I was getting ready to go,” Nacua said. “We ended up having a good game after that and being like, ‘Oh, I think he’s thinking like me or I’m thinking like him,’ and it ended up working out. I think the communication has just expanded from there.”
Morning debrief
As a rookie, Nacua was invited to join Stafford and receiver Cooper Kupp in their “breakfast club,” early-morning film sessions between the two in which they broke down opponents and brainstormed suggestions for the coming game plan. It was a ritual started out of Stafford and Kupp’s penchant for arriving at the facility before sunrise.
The meetings live on this fall after Kupp’s departure for the Seattle Seahawks, though Nacua sheepishly admits that he’s not up as early as his veteran mentors were in years past.
“They’re not too different than what they used to,” Stafford said. “Door is always open in the quarterback room so guys are popping in and out all the time. Puka’s done a great job of being prepared and ready to go. It’s usually just eggs, bacon, little bit of toast and some football.”
As a rookie, Nacua marveled at the level of understanding between Stafford and Kupp as they talked shop. But he also knew that on some level, Stafford was trying to communicate with him through his conversations with Kupp.
“And now being in those meetings by myself and me and him are in there and talking, I’m watching the things and kind of following the routine that I watch and the conversations kind of start in between us now,” Nacua said. “He’s like, ‘This is what I’m thinking, this is what I see. Watch this clip. Look at how he breaks leverage here. This is similar to how we run this concept.’”
This even footing between quarterback and receiver is how you get moments like in the season opener, when Nacua slightly altered two seam routes to beat different types of coverage. The two didn’t need to speak before the snap for Stafford to know how Nacua would run the route.
The confidence from Stafford was so high that he threw one of his signature no-look passes on one of the routes.
“It’s a combination of a bunch of reps is what it is,” Stafford explained. “Reading body language, understanding plays that maybe we’ve run together in the past that we call different now against a different look that might shake out the same. Every time you get reps with guys, those bank. Those bank in your head on what you could do better or, ‘Oh man, let’s do that again.’”
When head coach Sean McVay watches Nacua this year, he can see the confidence that Nacua has in where Stafford is leading him with the ball. This level of trust might explain Nacua’s zero drops this season; he does not turn early to look upfield for a running lane or a coming defender, instead believing that “Nine” will lead him where he needs to go.
“I think you run your routes with that extra bit of confidence of, ‘Yeah, there is no fear.’ I feel like that’s a motto that I say before the games,” Nacua explained. “But especially as a wide receiver of trusting and feeling that spatial awareness but also having that feeling that, man, this ball even if there is a defender, it’s going to be there to protect me.”
These are football skills Nacua has honed with Stafford, in practices, games and breakfast club meetings. But the latter have also served as a place for Nacua to learn some softer skills from Stafford as he tries to lead more within the Rams’ locker room and in his personal life, too.
“His level of communication is something that he says carries from what he’s learned in football and how it’s kind of carried into some of his relationship stuff, especially now that he has kids,” Nacua said. “Each person requires a different level of communication, you tailor to each person so it feels genuine. And I think that’s something as a young kid, trying to become a leader in my own way for my position group and for this football team, how intentional he is with his interaction with everybody.”
Together in the book of football
It was an innocuous play, a little screen pass to the right to Nacua in the season opener like Stafford had thrown dozens of times before.
It was so seemingly insignificant Sept. 7 against the Houston Texans that it wasn’t until Stafford went to the sidelines and SoFi Stadium’s Oculus video board showed the highlight that the quarterback realized that it had been the play that made him the 10th player in NFL history to surpass 60,000 career passing yards.
Stafford had missed the opportunity to be the quarterback when Nacua broke the rookie receptions and receiving yards records in 2023, resting as he was in Week 18 of that season. So he walked up behind the receiver he still calls “Kid” and said, “I’m glad that one went to you.”
“He was like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ I don’t think he really knew. … It was just classic Puka stuff,” Stafford said. “I’ve had a lot of good moments with him. I’m just excited that I’ll always remember that I threw it to him.”