Is this Puka Nacua’s best season yet? The NFL’s all-time rookie king at wide receiver has only been improving since his first season and his third year in the league is the best one so far.
Nacua leads the NFL with 93 catches despite missing a game and he’s on pace for 128 if he plays in all 16 games. Nacua is averaging career-highs all over the board:
- 98.8 yards per game
- 71.2% success rate
- 6 touchdowns (7 total)
- 78.8% catch rate
- Only 2 drops
Nacua was blamed for 13 drops as a rookie. So this is a massive improvement from year one. Nacua has set a new NFL record for most catches through 40 career games at 277.
I know that PFF said this week that Nacua’s game against the Cardinals was the best they ever graded for a receiver, which is…silly. Not a single Rams fan came out of the game saying that Nacua had the best game by a receiver that they’ve ever seen, let alone the best game by a Rams receiver they’ve ever seen…let alone the best PUKA NACUA game they’ve ever seen.
But it was still yet another great game on his resume.
Per Next Gen Stats, Nacua’s best game of the season by EPA (estimated points added) came against the Colts:
- 13 catches
- 170 yards
- 1 TD
- Close game!
That’s the sixth-best game by a receiver of 2025.
Nacua’s next best game came against the Texans:
- 10 catches
- 130 yards
- Close game!
That’s the 32nd best game by a receiver of 2025.
Then at +10 EPA, Nacua’s game against the Cardinals (7 catches, 142 yards, 2 TD, not a close game) is his third-best EPA performance of the season. With that, Nacua has three of the top-37 games by a receiver in 2025.
Nacua has 7 of the Rams’ best 9 games by receiving EPA despite the fact that he’s teammates with the NFL’s leader in touchdown catches.
Although Nacua won’t set any major franchise receiving records this season (mostly because Cooper Kupp was so dominant in 2021), he is still having one of the individual seasons by a Rams player in history. Nacua could finish the season over 120 catches and over 1,500 yards while leading L.A. to a division title in the league’s toughest division. He’s tracking to score double-digits for the first time.
Puka Nacua was phenomenal as a rookie. He’s even better in year three.
Puka’s price tag in 2026?
If Nacua is extended after the season, which seems probable given that as a fifth round pick he’s been so vastly underpaid for the last three years, the price tag should go above Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase. I tried to argue a couple of years ago that Puka would make more money than Chase and was laughed at. He’s going to make a lot more.
The free-spending Rams should not and probably will not prolong negotiations with Puka in 2026.
Chase makes $40.25 million per season as the NFL’s highest paid receiver. Jefferson’s $110 million guarantee is the most for a receiver.
But Nacua’s agent could instead point to Micah Parsons and target the “highest paid-non QB” deal in the NFL instead: Parsons makes $46.5 million per season with $136 million guaranteed.
The structure of a Nacua extension could look something like four years, $170 million, $115 million guaranteed. That’s $42.5 million per season. It’s not as much as Parsons, but it’s plenty more than the highest paid receivers in the league.
At the trajectory he’s been on since 2023, Puka Nacua deserves that extension as much as any player in the league.
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