Are Matthew Stafford and Puka Nacua disrespected by their duo ranking?

Do Rams have a top-2 QB-WR duo?

Unless Davante Adams channels his prime years again during his debut season with the Los Angeles Rams, that could be the only thing that prevents Matthew Stafford and Puka Nacua being the NFL’s best or second-best QB-WR pairing in the NFL. That is, maybe Adams and Puka end up as a 1a, 1b type of receiver pairing for Stafford.

But Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, and Jalen Hurts probably shouldn’t be ranked over a pairing of Stafford and either of his top-two receivers.

In a list posted by FOX Sports, Stafford and Nacua were ranked as the NFL’s 5th-best QB-WR duo behind the obvious top answer of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. But less obvious and somewhat offensive were the rankings of Prescott with CeeDee Lamb, Goff with Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Hurts with A.J. Brown over L.A.’s record-setting pairing.

In fact, you could argue that Stafford-Puka and Stafford-Adams both belong in the top-10.

Shouldn’t Stafford rank higher than those QBs alone?

Stafford is not coming off of an elite season by any means, throwing 20 touchdowns in 16 starts, but Prescott missed more than half of the year and only had 11 touchdowns with eight interceptions over his eight starts.

What is Dak Prescott doing at the top of any list other than an injury report?

Prescott finished second in MVP voting in 2023, but has yet to prove himself on the big stages. It seems like Lamb is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, as are the other receivers ranked in the top-4.

Goff is coming off of a Sam Darnold-like performance in the postseason last year, throwing 3 interceptions in a loss.

Hurts is in the opposite scenario, riding high off of the Super Bowl win. Can he improve on his regular season numbers next season, especially if the NFL bans the tush push?

Just ranking NFC quarterbacks alone, would Stafford ever finish fourth behind Prescott, Goff, and Hurts?

Puka Nacua’s redemption

If not for missing five games and being held out of the finale to rest starters, Nacua may have topped his record-setting rookie numbers from 2023.

• Yards per game went up from 87 to 90
• Catch rate went up from 65.6% to 74.5%
• Success rate went up from 57% to 63.2%
• Yards per target held steady at 9.3

Nacua’s 17-game pace was 122 catches for 1,530 yards and he was still effective in the playoffs despite the divisional round game being in the snow.

He was almost as productive as Lamb (1,194 yards) despite playing in four fewer games.

St. Brown is excellent at what he does, but his role is not as valuable as what Puka Nacua does for the Rams.

A.J. Brown is an established star who averaged 11.1 yards per target last season. Imagine what he could do if his quarterback was Matthew Stafford instead of Hurts.

Without getting into what Davante Adams could do for L.A.’s offense moving forward, including opening up more opportunities for Puka, the Rams seem better set at QB-WR than at least two of the teams ranked ahead of them on this list.