{"id":156006,"date":"2025-06-24T23:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/156006\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T23:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:59:10","slug":"rams-wr-puka-nacua-was-a-first-down-machine-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/156006\/","title":{"rendered":"Rams WR Puka Nacua was a first-down machine in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/los-angeles-rams\/343\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Los Angeles Rams;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Los Angeles Rams<\/a> receiver Puka Nacua missed five of the first six games of the 2024 NFL season but still produced a sensational year with nearly 1,000 receiving yards on 79 receptions.<\/p>\n<p>Part of how Nacua accomplished this feat is because of his ability to convert receptions into first downs. According to Fantasy Points Data, Nacua caught a pass that resulted in a first down on 17% of the routes he ran this past season. That number ranked No. 1 among all receivers in 2024, well ahead of other stalwarts like A.J. Brown, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Ja&#8217;Marr Chase.<\/p>\n<p>Nacua is <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/puka-nacua-led-wrs-yards-170042309.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:used to leading NFL receivers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">used to leading NFL receivers<\/a> after a great production season, but this number shows why Matthew Stafford preferred passing the ball to him over others in 2024. Nacua simply got the job done and moved the chains.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Davante Adams, interestingly enough, did not make the top-16 list. That could partially be caused by the teams he was on in 2024 (the New York Jets and Las Vegas Raiders) or that his routes weren&#8217;t necessarily always to the chains. He saw a lot of targets either well downfield or in the short-yardage, which don&#8217;t always equate to first downs.<\/p>\n<p>Nacua is a chain-mover, while the addition of Adams should only make life easier for Stafford on a down-to-down situation. It&#8217;s night, though, to have a special talent at receiver and one that can be relied upon on a play-by-play basis.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/theramswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/rams\/2025\/06\/24\/rams-wr-puka-nacua-first-down-machine-2024-matthew-stafford\/84341641007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Rams WR Puka Nacua was a first-down machine in 2024;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Rams WR Puka Nacua was a first-down machine in 2024<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Rams receiver Puka Nacua missed five of the first six games of the 2024 NFL season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[12275,8694,4566,1081,5430,7,2780,393,35361,1014,58,2444,2611,32,1075,6,1088,424],"class_list":{"0":"post-156006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-2024-nfl-season","9":"tag-a-j-brown","10":"tag-amon-ra-st-brown","11":"tag-cooper-kupp","12":"tag-davante-adams","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-justin-jefferson","15":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","16":"tag-leading-nfl-receivers","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-rams","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-losangelesrams","21":"tag-matthew-stafford","22":"tag-nacua","23":"tag-nfl","24":"tag-puka-nacua","25":"tag-rams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114741062372749509","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}