The Los Angeles Rams have a bevy of rookies on the current roster and Puka Nacua is among the first-year players that have gotten rave reviews since joining the team. With the Rams holding OTAs in recent weeks, Mike LaFleur is heaping praise on Nacua ahead of his rookie campaign.
“He’s a good-sized kid. He’s got a good frame to him. He catches the ball really effortlessly,” LaFleur said. “He can stay grounded through the catch and so he is doing a good job with it. And particularly moving him around quite a bit, not babying him at all with the motions and the alignments and stuff like that and so he’s doing a good job. You can tell, all you have to do is look at these – especially the young guys – just look at their eyes when they’re in the huddle and you can tell the guys that are swimming, the guys that aren’t and he definitely has a calm demeanor about himself and is fitting in nicely.”
The Rams selected Nacua with the 177th overall pick in the fifth round of this year’s draft out of BYU. Even though he isn’t an extremely athletic wideout, Nacua’s role in college has given many the idea that he could end up possessing a similar role as Robert Woods once had with the Rams.
At 6-foot-1, 205 pounds, Nacua brings good size to the wide receiver position for the Rams. He doesn’t have game-changing speed, but Nacua does excel with the ball in his hands, so LaFleur knows he could be at his best when he’s moved around in the offense.
It can understandably take a decent amount of time for a rookie to get adjusted to everything that the jump from college to the NFL entails. In the early portion of the offseason activities, LaFleur is impressed with where Nacua is currently at.
