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Sarah Barshop, ESPN Staff Writer
IN THE MONTH after Puka Nacua ended his first NFL season with the most rookie receiving yards in league history, the Los Angeles Rams receiver was having fun.
He was enjoying the perks that come with going from a fifth-round pick out of BYU to breaking a record that had stood for 63 years. He rode a Zamboni during a Los Angeles Kings game, played in his first Pro Bowl and spent Super Bowl week in Las Vegas.
Then the Thursday before the Super Bowl he got a text from fellow Rams receiver Cooper Kupp:
Hey, I’m starting back up on Monday morning. I know you might be out of town, but when you get back in town, we’ll get right to it.
“I’m thinking like, man, Cooper’s already starting to work out,” Nacua said.
But Nacua thought back to the conversation he’d had with wide receivers coach Eric Yarber after the Rams wrapped the season with a playoff loss to the Detroit Lions in the wild-card round. They talked about how the receiver could take the next step after his breakout rookie season.
“The first thing I wanted him to do is hold on to Cooper Kupp’s coattails and train with him and do everything he does,” Yarber said. “And he took that to heart.”
While Nacua had plenty of fun after the Super Bowl — including dunking in the NBA All-Star celebrity game and sitting courtside at both an exhibition match between Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal in Las Vegas and a Los Angeles Lakers game — Kupp’s text was the turning point in his offseason.
Starting with early morning workouts at Kupp’s house, Nacua rebuilt his body and focused on his nutrition, all in an effort to build on a rookie season in which he finished with 105 catches for 1,486 yards and six touchdowns. Nacua set the rookie receiving yardage record previously held by Bill Groman, who had 1,473 receiving yards in a 14-game season in 1960. Nacua’s 105 receptions broke a more recent record, one set by Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle in 2021 when he finished the season with 104.
“His body is totally different,” Yarber said. “He looks just like Cooper. He’s lost so much body fat and gained so much lean muscle, which enabled him to move more efficiently now. And he has better body control. But he did exactly what I said.
“And you’re seeing some of the results right now.”
KUPP HAD A workout schedule: 6 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday — the harder workouts, Nacua said — and noon Tuesday and Thursday. And if Kupp needed to be somewhere else that day, “We were going an extra hour early,” Nacua said.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we’re going to miss our workouts,'” Nacua said. “[He’d say,] ‘I’m leaving at 7:30, be here at 5:30 or be here at 5.'”
The workouts took place before the start of the Rams’ offseason program and were a combination of mobility work, to stay explosive, and working on their top-end speed. And then Kupp’s conditioning days, Nacua said, “were some of the tougher ones.” Which is why at some point every morning for the first week, Nacua threw up on Kupp’s lawn.
“He didn’t exaggerate,” Kupp said. “The first few days were pretty rough for him. They were pretty rough.
“He kept coming back, he kept showing up on time, ready to go, great attitude, ready to get to work. And I think that speaks a lot too about the guy that Puka is, pushing through some really tough stuff early on and then being able to just kind of take it in stride and grow.”
And since Nacua wanted to stay in the Los Angeles area as much as he could so he wouldn’t miss any workouts with Kupp, he asked his family to come to California to visit instead of spending more time in Utah. Which is how his youngest brother Tei, a wide receiver who is committed to BYU, came to work out with Puka and Kupp on one of their easier workouts.
“And my little brother threw up on the recovery day,” Nacua said. “But not on Coop’s lawn. In Coop’s bathroom. I just remember being like, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s going to get me kicked out of Coop’s. They’re never going to let me in the gate ever again.’
“‘I was like, ‘All you had to do was make it out to the lawn, bro. We’re already working out outside. All you had to do was take five extra steps, bro.’ It was really bad. That was the one I still think about.”
Not only did Nacua appreciate joining Kupp’s workouts, but he said it also gave him the ability to “watch the process of what an offseason kind of looks like from one of the best in the league.” Kupp is “the mastermind of running routes,” Nacua said, and “was very open and honest with me and where I can improve.”
“I’m trying to still reach Coop’s expectations because he set the standard for us in the wide receiver room and I think for a lot of receivers in the NFL,” Nacua said “… The standard is still set very high. I don’t think I’m close to reaching it, but it made it fun because I know that there’s more to grab.
“I feel last year was so much fun and I learned a lot, but there’s still so much stuff on the table.”
One of those things he has learned is not only how to work out hard, but how to recover after, something that is even more critical during a 17-game season.
“Both of them don’t fear hard work and they don’t complain about hard work, but it’s all about the recovery,” Yarber said, “And Cooper has showed him how to take care of his body and recover from all the hard work.”
PART OF THAT recovery process, Nacua learned, was eating right. While he said he ate a lot of fast food last season, he has learned how important his diet is to how quickly he can recover after a workout.
Some of that is cutting back on the fried foods and watching the inflammatory foods and amount of dense foods he’s putting into his body, including rice and taro, two foods prevalent in his Polynesian culture. So far, his adjustment has been to try to find a good balance by limiting himself to having those types of foods once a week.
“My nutrition definitely did change after starting workouts [with Kupp] because I was like, ‘Hey, I can’t keep showing up at 6 a.m. and throwing up,” Nacua said. “So I was like maybe I’ll wait to eat after.”
That balance is a far cry to how he ate at points during the “whirlwind” of the 2023 season, he said. He’d drive home from the team’s facility at California Lutheran University and see Burger King, Jack in the Box or his favorite, McDonald’s.
“It was a convenience thing for me,” Nacua said. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to eat at home. I’m tired. I’m not going to sit and make a meal.’ But I just realized, man, that extra five minutes it takes to either make something at home or just put this stuff on the grill real quick, it makes the food honestly taste a little better.”
The self-proclaimed “picky eater” said he appreciated the way the Rams’ nutritional staff has been able to plan around things he likes — trying to avoid fruits and vegetables as much as he can.
“[They’ve been] able to still set a game plan around the things that I like and be like, ‘OK, instead of going to get quick carbs of fries, what are the things that we can do?'” Nacua said. “I mean I’m not big on fruit or vegetables either, but finding the other ways I can get those same nutrients from healthier foods that will pay me benefits instead of just being full at the moment.”
The combination of workouts with Kupp and eating more like him too has led Nacua to shed at least 10 pounds this offseason. At the start of the offseason program, he said he was around 210 pounds, down from the 220 he was playing at for most of last season.
“I feel like I got slimmer in my body fat and just feeling more firm in the weight I’m at,” Nacua said. “I lost a couple pounds here and there, but it feels good to see some muscles. I don’t think I was fat last year, but a little more muscle definition is always nice.”
ONCE THE RAMS stepped on the field for the second phase of their offseason program, Nacua noticed a difference in what his rebuilt body allowed him to do.
A year ago, he said, he felt like he was “slipping and sliding around,” not really feeling like he was putting his foot in the ground. Now, he notices that he’s moving cleaner and feels like he’s “a lot more under control” while putting his foot in the ground and changing direction.
“That rookie [season], you’re just spinning,” Rams offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur said. “You have so much. You get drafted and next thing you know, you’re already at a facility following the regimen that we have put forward. And I don’t know how many weeks [Kupp and Nacua] took off, but it didn’t seem like much because when they were kind of walking around here in March and February, they looked good from just their body [composition].”
When talking about his record-breaking rookie season, Nacua pointed out there’s plenty he wants to improve, saying he led the league in drops last year.
“I know I can correct those mistakes and being able to watch the ball in more and to snag every ball that comes my way,” Nacua said. “… So to be ready and prepared every Sunday is the goal that I have.”
And while Yarber was quick to say Nacua is hard on himself because he had 160 targets, which was tied for the sixth most in the league last season and by far the most for a rookie, he acknowledged a lot of Nacua’s drops could have been eliminated.
“I’ve just seen him work on his weaknesses,” Yarber said. “Some of his weaknesses were his body control. He’s learned how to control his body and he learned how to fall, learned how to torque his body, and he learned how to cut off the correct foot all the time.
“But he’s more fundamentally sound now.”
In mid-April, Nacua was asked how he plans to replicate his rookie season. His goal last season, he said, wasn’t to break the rookie record. It was to “be there every Sunday and for my team and to show up in the ways that they’re going to ask me.”
“And that’s something I’ve set for the standard for myself is to play in all 17 games, the regular season and to be ready to end healthy enough to play in the playoffs,” Nacua said. “And that’s what I feel like has been very at the forefront of my mind. Try to control the things I can.”
Despite the extra attention Nacua will get, without the benefit of the way he “snuck out last year,” Yarber said, the way the receiver has prepared hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Rams building.
“There was obviously a lot of accolades that came with the production that he had, but that’s accompanied with an authentic humility,” coach Sean McVay said.
“I’ve seen a guy that’s really continuing to become even more of a pro. Taking care of his body, getting on a more disciplined diet, the way that he’s come out here and worked hard, the way that he’s just so receptive to coaching, but also earning that confidence.”