Puka Nacua is 1 game away from another career honor

Puka Nacua has had a remarkable and historic career with the Rams already but there’s one thing he hasn’t done yet: Puka has surprisingly never won an NFC Player of the Month award. The NFL leader in catches and yards through three games, Nacua could finally check that box if he has another monster performance against the Colts on Sunday.

Do you expect Puka Nacua to hit 100 yards again and will his resume be good enough to win the NFC Offensive Player of the Month award for September?

Puka Nacua’s first 3 games

Without Cooper Kupp this season, Nacua has grabbed almost all of Matthew Stafford’s attention even with Davante Adams also on the team. Here are Nacua’s first three games:

• 10 catches for 130 yards against the Texans
• 8 catches for 91 yards and a 45-yard touchdown run against the Titans
• 11 catches for 112 yards against the Eagles

Some players put up crazy volume numbers because of targets and a lot of missed connections. Not Puka. He’s got 29 catches on 35 targets. That’s a catch rate of 82.9%.

He has not caught a touchdown yet, but it’s kind of more impressive that he has a 45-yard touchdown run.

Nacua has 333 yards in three games. What’s the historical context for the best September of all-time by a wide receiver?

Let’s set aside Mark Duper (649 yards in 1984) and Wes Chandler (578 yards in 1979) because those teams played 5 games in September. Most will only ever play 4.

The most September receiving yards in 4 games is Charley Hennigan, who had 543 yards in September of 1963 with the Houston Oilers. Former Rams great Henry Ellard had 536 yards in September of 1994 with the Washington Redskins. Jerry Rice had 522 yards in September of 1995.

That kind of sets a baseline for historic Septembers. Nacua has 333 yards, so he would need about 200 yards against the Colts to make a mark. That’s possible, but not probable: Puka’s career-high is 164 yards in the regular season and 181 yards in the playoffs.

If we go back to his rookie season, Nacua had 338 yards in September of 2023, but only in 3 games. He had 163 yards in his fourth game, but it happened in October. That gave Nacua 501 yards in his first 4 games.

If the Rams had played all 4 games in September, instead of Week 4 being October 1st, Nacua would have had the 10th-best September in NFL history and the 7th-best in history with 4 games! And he was a rookie!

Nacua was a viable candidate to win NFC Offensive Player of the Month in his very first month in the NFL, but he was kinda robbed. The award went to Christian McCaffrey, who had 353 rushing yards and 70 receiving yards. Honestly, even with hindsight that looks dumb: Puka was more impressive.

Since Nacua entered the NFL, these players have won player of the...