Puka Nacua is one of the most productive and successful receivers in the NFL right now, but would he be among the league’s top weapons if not for Matthew Stafford? If most of his success is credited to Stafford, then the time will come for the Los Angeles Rams to trade or part ways with Nacua, which will probably be shortly after the quarterback retires.
On the other hand, if Nacua is an elite weapon for any quarterback, then he’d be the perfect player to keep long-term for Ty Simpson.
It’s sort of like the chicken and the egg for quarterbacks and receivers: Who deserves more credit? The wrong answer could cost the Rams over $100 million.
Rams must keep options open
As I wrote last week, the Rams should extend Nacua, but with the caveat that they need to have options to part ways when Stafford calls it quits:
Given Nacua’s talent as a receiver and importance to Matthew Stafford, a contract extension is reasonable. Given Nacua’s balls-to-the-wall physical playing style that often gets him hurt and his potential for distractions, a deal that gives the Rams options to part ways would be prudent.
That piece was about the correlation between the top-paid wide receivers and the teams making the playoffs. Surprisingly, or not, spending top dollars on a receiver didn’t work out for the majority of those teams. In fact, 12 of the top-15 receivers with the highest cap hits in 2026 were on teams that missed the playoffs.
Is that what the Rams will become if they have Puka and not Stafford?
I’m assuming for the sake of this article that the Rams will extend Puka Nacua’s contract because they need him right now. As we’ve seen with some recent trades, like the ones involving A.J. Brown and Sauce Gardner, options to make a deal can be open even shortly after an extension is signed.
Nacua is important for Stafford, and Stafford is important to Nacua. But given that one of those players is taking his retirement plans on a “year to year” basis, half of the equation could be gone by 2027 or 2028. At which point, the Rams may need to re-evaluate Nacua’s value even after signing an extension.
Can Nacua be “Puka” without Stafford?
Stafford’s history with top WRs
Two years from now there will be a host of variables to consider regarding Nacua staying with the team or not. Has 13 personnel eroded the need for a stud receiver? Is Puka still healthy or has he been injured and missing games?
But the most important variable, as far as I’m concerned, is whether Stafford is still the quarterback or not.
When he was on the Detroit Lions, Stafford helped Calvin Johnson produce Hall of Fame caliber stats, including three straight first-team All-Pro seasons from 2011 to 2013. We rarely saw Johnson without Stafford, but he was always at his best with Stafford.
When Stafford got to the Rams, he immediately helped Cooper Kupp go from a fantastic receiver to being the best receiver in the NFL in 2021. Were it not for Kupp’s injuries, their relationship would have been even more productive. Kupp wasn’t the same last season in Seattle without Stafford, although he was older.
He’s also an example of when an extension can go wrong, as Kupp didn’t come close to producing the value needed from a three-year, $80 million deal signed in 2022. When Stafford went down that year, so did the entire team.
Stafford has been the constant in three separate record-setting seasons. Most receiving yards in a year: Calvin Johnson with 1,964 in 2012, followed closely by Cooper Kupp’s 1,947 in 2021. In 2023, Stafford helped Nacua set the record for most receiving yards for a rookie with 1,486.
Plain and simple, Stafford makes his receivers better.
Nacua is best suited for Rams
And that’s not necessarily a good thing. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell recently explained why Smith-Njigba was worth more than Nacua in a trade:
“There are teams that would also (correctly) believe that Nacua is a better fit for Sean McVay’s offense than he would be for anyone else.“
If Stafford retires in 1-2 years, the Rams will need to take a long, hard look at Nacua’s value as it applies to the rest of the team in terms of affordability. They’d also have to assume that whoever takes over as QB won’t have the ability to maximize Nacua’s production quite the way Stafford has been able to, even if that quarterback is Ty Simpson and they really like his two years of development behind the scenes.
An extension would run from 2027 onward, but a trade could be financially viable by 2028. Preferably 2029, for cap purposes, but teams are more capable of ever than moving players before the time is right. So now is the optimum time to extend Nacua, avoid a franchise tag situation, and keep the most important offensive relationship together for as long as possible.
However, if Stafford is more responsible for Puka’s success than Puka himself, the Rams will need to have all options available to them when the quarterback decides he’s had enough success for a career.
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