{"id":862793,"date":"2026-09-27T20:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T20:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/862793\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T20:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T20:22:07","slug":"puka-nacuas-contract-looms-over-his-injury-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/862793\/","title":{"rendered":"Puka Nacua’s contract looms over his injury absence"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Rams receiver Puka Nacua potentially misses a second straight game due to a groin injury, questions linger regarding when he will return.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s now impossible not to wonder whether the absence of a new contract is contributing to the situation.<\/p>\n

Nacua is making $5.767 million in the final year of his rookie deal. Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who arrived in the NFL the same year as Nacua, has gotten his second deal, at $42.15 million per year. Yes, Nacua\u2019s contract has been delayed by his off-field issues. But with no financial security beyond this year, Nacua surely doesn\u2019t want to risk aggravating the injury and missing even more time. Likewise, he doesn\u2019t want to perform in a way that will reduce the perception that he deserves to be paid among the best in the league at the position.<\/p>\n

Those dynamics are lurking in the latest update from Adam Schefter of ESPN. He reports that Nacua \u201ccould return as soon as next week<\/a>,\u201d but that the groin issue has \u201cimpacted his explosiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key observation is this \u2014 Nacua \u201cfunctionally\u201d can play, \u201cbut he has not felt like he can play with the same explosiveness he has had in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, he doesn\u2019t want to diminish his contract year by not playing with the characteristic explosiveness.<\/p>\n

The team, per Schefter, doesn\u2019t believe surgery will be needed, but it\u2019s \u201cnot entirely off the table.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a hold-in, per se. It\u2019s apparently a real injury, which brings together a desire to not make it worse and a goal to play as well as he possibly can, when he plays.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the bottom line \u2014 Nacua quite possibly would be playing if he had his second deal and the security that goes along with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Rams receiver Puka Nacua potentially misses a second straight game due to a groin injury, questions linger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-862793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}