Tom Pelissero on Puka Nacua’s potential suspension and contract extension
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz are joined by NFL insider Tom Pelissero to discuss the latest news surrounding Puka Nacua's potential suspension and potential contract extension at the end of this season. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
You're right that there was a lot going on around Puka, including the stint that he did in a rehabilitation facility back in the spring.
Everything that I've been told since Puka got back in the building, and he was around even in OTAs and mini camp, i- is that he's been in a good place.
Now, obviously there's a, a contract situation lingering over this.
There were some allegations that potentially could trigger, a personal conduct, policy investigation, perhaps additional discipline from the NFL, but the NFL did not put him on the commissioner's exempt list.
At this point, he is eligible to play.
Again, Puka was probably going through a lot on a personal level.
If you just look at the timeline of how everything played out after the end of last season, he still produced at a really high level.
And despite all the various moving parts around the Rams in this off-season, one thing that they have been counting on is Puka Nacua looking like himself, which is one of, if not the best wide receivers in the NFL.
Let's stick with Puka then, because he's going into the final year of his rookie deal, which feels wild.
It feels like Puka's been around for much longer than four years.
That's how impactful he's been for this team.
But what is the hold up on getting that next deal done?
It was always gonna be a little bit more complicated, Caroline, because he wasn't a first-round draft pick.
And the way that it works in the NFL, the first-round picks have a fifth-year option that can be exercised after year three.
That kind of sets the table for a lot of those big deals to get done, like Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who got his deal done in Seattle.
With Puka, the math changes because as a non-first round pick, he doesn't have that option year.
This is the contract year.
Now, they do have the right to franchise tag him after the season if they can't work something out.
But you would think a team that generally is more proactive like the Rams would be thinking about getting something done.
We'll see if there's any possibility of that happening prior to the start of this season.
It may be in everyone's best interest just to see how the season plays out.
I would fully anticipate, barring additional issues away from the football field, that Puka's going to be the highest paid wide receiver in NFL history when all is said and done.
But we've still got some additional steps that go into that.
It never felt like even in the spring when the JSN stuff was heating up that they were really going to advance anything with Puka.
We'll see if that changes in the next seven to 10 days here before kickoff.
But as of now, Puka's got everything out there in front of him, which is going into a contract year with the possibility of a really, really big carrot hanging out there for him after the season.
