How a Rookie Receiver Broke the NFL.

hey puka Les's need Los Angeles Rams what if we draft you with the 43rd pick here in the fifth round puka naua not a household name pukaa pukaa puka again pukaa is Ina diving gra touchdown pukaa Stafford throws there he is Thea to the end zone Rams win oh my God he was not a first round pick he was not a second round pick how has he been able to integ to this offense so quickly Stafford and he I mean he trusts him a lot he's turning plays that any old wide receiver is turning into like 15 yards he's turning him into 50 one of the best rookie receivers the NFL has ever seen in by many metrics the best ever puka AA has just become the alltime NFL rookie record holder Ram Nation Bab [Applause] [Applause] so puka nakua had the greatest rookie receiver season in NFL history last year that much is widely publicized and very well known but what isn't widely publicized and what isn't really talked about that much is how exactly he did that today that is the question we're going to answer we're going to explore the very subtle nuances to puk's game like footwork and post Snap side adjustments as a route Runner that make him already feel like a veteran receiver even though he's barely a year into his career and in particular we'll also look at how his role and his skill set within this offense grew and evolved as Shawn mcvey's and Matthew Stafford's trust in him also grew and evolved if you like the nitty-gritty details of how NFL receivers actually get yards at that level this is the show for you before we dive into it though I do want to thank a very special group of people who you all know and love at this point if you're a longtime viewer of this channel because they help to make all this possible in the first place Factor this time of the offseason tends to be pretty light for me but during the season on my heaviest production days I might honestly get like 15 minutes max to eat lunch and then I have to get back to recording or streaming or doing Q&A in the Discord so I need something I can eat quickly and all Factor meals heat up in about 2 minutes and they taste great too obviously like I'm not just shoveling processed TV dinners down my throat here this is real actual cooked food and it tastes like it there's 35 different meal options and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every single week so you're always going to have new things to explore and you know me I'm a sucker for the juices and the wellness shots too those are all awesome so if you're looking for quick food options to get you through a busy day but you want to eat something that you're actually going to like I think factor is definitely worth giving a try and if you do want to try it out by the way you can use my promo code by heading to factor75.com or click the link below and use code film room 50 that will get you 50% off your first Factor box and 20% off your next month of orders on top of that again that is promo code film room 50 at the link below to get 50% off your first Factor box and you're also going to get 20% off your next box on top of that so thank you once again to factor for sponsoring Today's Show and with that let's talk about feat we'll start with puk's role and skill set all the way back in the first few weeks of the season because early season puka and late season puka were two totally different pukas at that point in the year a lot of n's production came from two things number one his ability to find and exploit gaps in zone coverage and number two how uncannily quick he's able to transition from making a catch to getting yards after that catch let's first talk about finding holes in coverage you hear that a lot when people talk about certain receivers that tend to work in the middle of the field or just do a lot of the Dirty Work in general but rarely do you ever hear people actually explain what that means a lot of routes at the NFL level or honestly even at the college and high school level at this point have options based on the coverage that the receiver is reading after the ball is snapped and I'm not talking about just breaking left or breaking right away from Leverage on Choice routes I'm talking about true Man versus Zone adjustments or even Middlefield close versus Middlefield open adjustments those are the kinds of options I'm talking about here so for instance one of the most common adjustments you'll see in Shawn mcf's offense or any offense around the NFL is this it's called a shallow sit and this is basically a one-sized fits-all kind of Route you know when and doubt it's going to be open and the reason why that is is because it can work against either man or Zone based on the read if you read a DB is going to be in man coverage against a reduced split before the snap for instance generally speaking that DB is going to be an outside leverage against this kind of split so if it does happen to be man coverage they've got pretty much no shot of catching you on a shallow route that's a free catch and run opportunity but if you read that it's Zone after the snap you're not going to keep running that shallow route straight into the hook Defender that can cut the route and cover you up you're just going to sit it down in space and again get free yards so when you hear an analyst say a receiver is good at finding holes in coverage what they really mean is that the receiver is on the same page with his quarterback when it comes to reading coverages the same way or in some cases reading blitzes the same way so that receiver is going to run his routes to the exact spot his quarterback expects him to every single time against any of those particular looks it's not just about football IQ it's about chemistry now like I alluded to earlier one other skill set that I think the Rams really appreciated from puka early on Beyond just his great understanding of the offense is how insanely efficient he is at turning all of these quick and easy catches into an insane number of explosive plays after the catch his ability to go from receiver to runner in one fluid motion as he brings the ball in is just rare and it's a big reason why he would get 7even 10 sometimes even 15 yards out of a catch that other receivers might only get four five or six yards out of and that skill in itself is also largely based on his trust with Stafford as well believe it or not trust does go both ways after all so their relationship was not just based on Stafford trusting puka to get to the right spots and of course adjust all of his routes accordingly it was also based on puka trusting Stafford to put the ball on the correct shoulder Time After Time and basically lead him to space to get more yards after the catch a big reason why nkua has a crazy fast transition from receiver to Runner is because he implicitly trusts Stafford to lead him to open grass with the ball so wherever the ball is placed puka immediately commits to that Direction with 100% dedication and ferocity and he gets every possible yard out of every catch because of that Blind Faith I think one of the best examples of this connection at work oddly enough came in ncua's first ever real game it was against Seattle in week one and pre- snap here once again puka is on the same page with Stafford he's seeing this nickel DB threaten to bring pressure off the field side edge against the Run pass option call so he knows that even if he doesn't actually Blitz there's still no way he's going to be able to get all the way back in position to handle a ball thrown outside away from his leverage anyway so he just stems his route outside right from the start knowing that Stafford is going to quit quickly pull the fake and gun it to him he breaks down and pivots and I want you to pay really close attention to this little drift here after that pivot puka knows where the ball is going to be placed and so he's already floating outside to meet it as if the ball is leading him to that space and right there is the transition to being a runner he's going from receiver to running back in literally two steps the shoulder is lowered he spins off contact and all of a sudden the Rams go from second and goal from the 17 to Third and goal from from the three I want to reiterate this is week one this is not normal stuff from a rookie let alone a rookie in their first professional game but for puka this was essentially a routine play for him from the very first moment he stepped on the field and of course it's all about trust not just trust from Stafford to puka but also from puka to Stafford and the fact that these two in their first ever game together made this look routine that is why they are special together so early on I think it's pretty clear what puk's role was right he was the Zone beater he was the blitz beater he was the yak guy he was the Dirty Work guy and he was great at all of that by the way like that's a very crucial role and he played that role well but he wasn't a complete receiver yet he wasn't seen as somebody who could be like a true X where you're putting him outside you know one-on-one against a press Corner let's say it's third and 10 you're down by four or maybe it's just a tight ball game late in the game and you look over and you say buddy we need to play right now we need you to win your one-on-one or we're [ __ ] like we need you to bail us out of this thing he was not seen as that type of receiver because that was not his role at least until it was by week six you started to see nkua lined up on the outside on the line of scrimmage as a true ex receiver with Stafford trusting him to go win on go balls on Third and 10 for touchdowns and of course he did it yes it was against the Eagles secondary but still he did it by week seven against the Steelers which is a game I was actually in the stance for personally puka had become the Rams primary answer against man coverage looks as well as Zone coverage looks and they ran him on endless Crossing routes to punish those man looks until Pittsburgh basically gave up calling it by week 13 he was beating man coverage against the best secondary in football Cleveland to win on sail routes against DBS that were lined up with a leverage Advantage mind you they were posted up outside knowing that he was going to break outside but didn't really matter still beat him across their face still got explosive catches anyway so there was [ __ ] all they could do about that and by week 14 in a Clos ball game against Baltimore with the game on the line late in the fourth quarter he was trusted to completely sell out and make ridiculous catches like this one just to keep his team in it and believe me if this play doesn't illustrate just how much Blind Faith Matthew Stafford has in puka just like puka has Blind Faith in Matt if this play doesn't illustrate that I don't know what will by the time the Rams had entered the home stretch of their season puka nakua was the guy yes Kiren Williams was the engine of the offense but puka was the gas he is what made everything go if you needed to beat Zone puka if you needed to beat man puka if you needed to run the ball puka I'm not kidding they would use him like a quasi fullback on a lot of run plays making him be the lead blocker just like they used to have Ben Gonic do and he was great at it he would take on linebackers in the hole and win hell they opened up the Ravens game by running it I believe eight or nine times in a row just straight marching down the field simply because they had puka out there blocking his ass off and also contributing as a rushing threat himself I just really want to hammer home how rare this kind of skill set is he's an X receiver he's a z- receiver he's a slot he's a fullback sort of he's a run threat he's a special teamer he's probably going to be a badass kick returner in the new kickoff structure too because it's perfectly suited for him he's just everything it's like Shawn McVey cloned Robert Woods in a lab but made him an even better version of Robert Woods pukaa without any hyperbole whatsoever is the perfect receiver for this offense to the point where even people like me that hyped him up to an almost irresponsible degree last summer even I was wrong because I still underestimated what puka was capable of and if you want proof by the way that me and my podcast partner EJ we're on the puka bandwagon early this is a clip from last June on our summer preview Series where we go team by team it's like a two monthl long Series this is what we both had to say about puka this time last year I thoroughly believe that he is the new Robert Woods for this team and that is lofty lofty expectations because Bobby trees is beloved in the Rams organization and in this podcast and in this podcast but looking at his skill set as a s after catch threat as somebody who can get jet sweeps uh and actually do a lot of damage with it somebody who's a Red Zone weapon somebody who's a tough as Nails intermediate threat even though he did have a lot of durability concerns that's why he dropped in the first place he plays the Robert Woods role like that's what he does and I think if he's even 80% of Robert Woods getting him in the last round of every single beste ball draft is going to be monstrous value see sometimes my irrational hype trains for fifth round rookies actually sort of kind of accidentally works out and that's okay all right like it doesn't happen often but on occasion I have a semi half wrong good take and that's all right with me because partial credit is still credit and C's get degrees and even though it got a 28 at Cal State Fullerton they can never take away my [ __ ] paper and that's what matters now will puka keep all of this up in 2024 uh it's tough to say I mean I can't guarantee anything right because Cooper Cup's going to be back and ideally healthy and the Run game is still probably going to be strong because their interior offensive line is like literally 1,000 lb between their guard Center guard Trio and they have two running backs who would willingly run into the gates of hell so probably the ideal Rams game plan is running like 30 times a game and then only throwing when they absolutely have to you know sprinkling in all the the normal puka nakua stuff that that we went over today like that's probably their ideal game plan so will he get 1,400 yards again H probably not like it's hard to do that twice but will he still be a productive like very productive and very important member of this offense with a very crucial role both in the Run game and the pass game like yes obviously he will he is way too talented he's way too versatile he's way too smart but most importantly his connection with Stafford is way too good to just not produce is he going to get, 1400 yards again that's a tough ceiling to project but his floor is exceptionally high so all of you who are drafting him in the first round in fantasy right now which I I want to say on Underdog he's like the sixth receiver off the board and the ninth overall pick off the board I think your faith in him is well placed also by the way Shameless plug if you want to start drafting for 2024 already especially for beste ball bball summer is already going on on Underdog fantasy and this time of year is a pretty good time to draft because none of the camp hype trains have taken off yet so if you want to get value on rookies or you know maybe value on some of the free agents that are at new destinations this year uh this time of year tends to be a little easier to get those values so if you want to start drafting already you can do so on Underdog fantasy again link down below or the QR code on the screen and with that I think that's all I have for you I'm going to go back to uh watching early 2010s 49ers tape uh I've got a you know a Willis and Bowman episode coming out pretty soon I got a Vic fangio episode coming out pretty soon so all the Eagles fans uh that have been begging me for that that's coming uh what else do I have uh 2008 Steelers the NFL sent me 08 Steelers tape 2006 Ravens uh 2009 Rivas there's a whole bunch of really cool [ __ ] that uh the NFL dug out of the Vault for me to do episodes on so all that's coming later this summer um but if you stuck around this long thank you very much um I don't really know how to end this so bye I guess

Channel: Brett Kollmann

Views: 122,912

Keywords: puka nacua, fantasy rankings

Id: 7IR2GLzzsXE

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024