Can Puka Nacua Reach A New Fantasy Ceiling In 2024

Puka Nacua is coming off of the best statistical rookie season we have ever seen in the NFL. Last year, he finished with 160 targets, 105 receptions, 1,486 receiving yards, and 6 receiving touchdowns. His reception and receiving yard totals were the most ever for a rookie in the NFL.

Heading into year two, managers have incredibly high expectations for the young Wide Receiver, but are the numbers he put up in his rookie season repeatable? Well, the Rams led the league last year in target share to their Wide Receivers, targeting them on 71.7% of their pass attempts. That was more than the next team by 3.5%. The Rams lost Tyler Higbee's ACL/MCL tear in Week 17 of the 2023 season and brought in Colby Parkinson as their lead Tight End while Higbee recovers.

They could lose targets in the tight end position. Blake Corum is the only other notable addition, and he will not take away targets from Puka Nacua. The only threat to Nacua’s production is a healthier Cooper Kupp.

Kupp missed the first four games of last year's season due to a bad hamstring injury that he re-aggravated right before the regular season started. During those first four games, Nacua averaged 13 targets, 9.8 receptions, and 125.3 yards per game. Once Kupp returned, Nacua averaged 8.5 targets, 5.2 receptions, and 77.8 yards per game.

Although these numbers do show a dip in production, Nacua was still the WR12 in half-PPR formats from Weeks 5 - 17 while they shared the field. If you look at the game logs during that 12-game stretch, you will see that both Wide Receivers ate into each other's work on a week-to-week basis.

In that span, there was only one week where both finished as WR12 or better and two weeks where they both finished as WR24 or better. However, Nacua finished as WR12 or better in 6 of their 12 shared games, and Kupp had 4 in that time span. Both will finish the season with solid numbers if healthy, but the cornerback matchup may dictate which Wide Receiver McVay decides to feature that week.

Last season, Kupp ran 59.6% of his routes from the slot, whereas Nacua ran 30.8% of his routes from the slot. Look for the Rams to target Kupp in games where the slot corner is susceptible and Nacua in games where the outside corners are susceptible. Despite their inconsistency week-to-week, the Rams love throwing the ball to the Wide Receiver position, giving both Nacua and Kupp a legitimate chance to finish inside at least WR18 this year.

Our consensus projections for Nacua in the 2024 season would be: 107 receptions, 1511 yards, 8 touchdowns through the air and 11 carries for 87 yards and 1 rushing touchdown.

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