He is someone who came from nowhere. During Week 1 of the 2023 season, everyone was wondering who this Puka Nacua kid was, after he caught 10 passes for 119 yards in the Los Angeles Rams’ victory over the Seattle Seahawks.
Since then, everyone found out who the fifth round, 177th-overall pick out of BYU in the 2023 NFL Draft was.
Now, Nacua is tied for the league lead in receptions with 18 in two games. Coupled with Davante Adams, the Rams could have the best wide receiver combo in the NFL. Combined,
they have 28 receptions, which ties them for the league best with the New York Giants’ tandem of Malik Nabers and Wan’Dale Robinson.
The 2-0 Eagles will host the 2-0 Rams this Sunday at 1 p.m. at Lincoln Financial Field, and the Rams’ pair is certainly on the mind of Eagles’ defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who spoke about preparing for the overall Rams’ offense this week.
“Yeah, they have a great offense,” he said. “Their scheme is really good and tough to prepare for, and tough to play. They got a great quarterback operating it. They now have two great receivers. [Los Angeles Rams Head Coach] Sean [McVay] does a great job calling the game. He’s a really good play caller throughout the course of a game. It’s an extremely difficult assignment.
“Yeah, they got two great receivers, Puka [Nacua] and [Davante] Adams. They got good tight ends. Tutu [Atwell] is a fast quick guy, and [Matthew] Stafford is one of the most gifted passers you’ll ever see, with his experience and their whole offense is based upon running the ball, so it’ll be an all-day sucker for us for sure.”
The Eagles enter the game as the No. 9 defense in the NFL, giving up an average of 300.5 yards a game, and are eighth against the pass, giving up 180.5 yards a game. The Eagles have yet to turn the ball over this season, and have two takeaways, both happened to be in the Red Zone.
Keeping the Rams off the field will be pertinent to winning, and that may mean getting Saquon Barkley more involved in the offense. So far, his longest run this season is 16 yards. In two games against the Rams, Barkley ran for 460 yards on 52 carries, with four touchdowns, two of which were for 70 and 72 yards—and a 78-yard touchdown in the snow in the fourth quarter of the Eagles’ playoff victory over the Rams.
So far this season, the Eagles are 29th overall in offense, although No. 7 in rushing (140 ave.), and Barkley is averaging a respectable 72 yards a game and 3.7 yards a carry, down a staggering 2.1 yards from his regular-season average and career-best mark of 5.8 yards per carry. “We haven’t had the glitzy glamor hundred-yard, whatever, the big pop runs that we’ve had,” Eagles’ offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo said this week, “but if you look at the efficiency and what we asked him to do, especially to close the game out, run it out of backed up and have some crucial runs in times. We had that one drive where we got in a nice flow when he was running the ball good, we hit the screen and then we were able to score. I think we’re moving in the right direction.”
By around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday we’ll know.
