FANTASY FOOTBALL NEWS

Puka Nacua Tops 100 Yards In Week 8 Return

By Jared Smola | Updated on Fri, Oct 25 2024 12:52 PM UTC

Rams WR Puka Nacua hauled in 7 of 9 targets for 106 yards in Thursday night's win over the Vikings. All three marks led the team. It was a super impressive performance from a guy who'd been out since Week 1 and had practiced just twice since coming off IR. Nacua's playing time was scaled back a bit: He played 56% of the offensive snaps and ran a route on 67% of pass plays. But his previous knee injury didn't seem to be a factor when he was on the field. Nacua created plenty of separation and ran with his usual oomph after the catch.

2024 Fantasy Football Impact

Chalk this up as one of the more surprising results of the 2024 season.

If you started Nacua, you got as good a result as you could have hoped for. If not, at least you have a WR1 going forward!

Nacua has now topped 100 receiving yards in eight of his first 19 games. That's tied with Justin Jefferson for the second-most all time. Dating back to last season, Nacua has gone over 100 yards in five of his last eight healthy games.

WR Cooper Kupp is more likely than not to remain with the Rams for the rest of the season now that they're 3-4 and back in the NFC West race. But Nacua looks like at least the 1A in this WR corps going forward -- if not the clear No. 1.

He has a fairly neutral schedule the rest of the way, with the only worrisome spot coming in Week 16 against the Jets.

Jared Smola, Lead Analyst

Jared has been with Draft Sharks since 2007. He’s now Lead Analyst, heading up the preseason and weekly projections that fuel your Draft War Room and My Team tools. He currently ranks sixth among 158 analysts in draft rankings accuracy.