Rams' Puka Nacua is the NFL's Best Bargain

Puka Nacua is the best bang-for-your-buck player in the NFL, producing All-Pro caliber performances while making near league minimum money. Now Nacua is set to receive potentially an NFL record-breaking offer this offseason, but as of right now, Nacua will count a whopping $1.1 million against the cap.

CBS Sports' Cody Benjamin named Nacua to his All-Bargain team, alongside Justin Jefferson and Brian Thomas Jr. Jefferson has a cap hit of $15.2 million and Thomas has $3.3 million.

"Nacua was a Day 3 flyer by the Rams in the 2023 draft, arriving in the fifth round. Accordingly, his rookie deal is ridiculously affordable considering the workload he's earned in Los Angeles," wrote Benjamin. "Injuries limited the rugged BYU product to 11 games in Year 2, but he's been an absolute target machine for Matthew Stafford when on the field, racking up 184 catches and nearly 2,500 yards in his first two NFL seasons."

I wouldn't call Nacua a flyer, considering Sean McVay was about to have an All-American meltdown if the Rams didn't select him, and while his nervousness was funny, the vision McVay had has paid dividends. There is no player more important to the recovery of the post-Super Bowl Rams than Puka Nacua.

While Les Snead and McVay may still have jobs if they didn't draft Nacua, they wouldn't have much job security. To be frank, when Nacua is not on the field, the Rams are not a winning football team. While they don't outright suck, that's more due to Matthew Stafford being able to throw the Rams back into ballgames over anything else.

Having good coaching is important, having players that can receive said coaching and use it to make things happen on the football field is paramount, and the Rams for the past two seasons did not have a player that is able to make things happen like Nacua.

The Rams were also stuck in financial hell, and if not for Nacua's low cap hit, they wouldn't have been able to continually pay Matthew Stafford his guaranteed money while keeping Cooper Kupp on the roster. If not for Nacua's cap hit, they might not have been able to afford Davante Adams and Tutu Atwell.

Nacua was putting up similar numbers per game to Jefferson, Thomas Jr, and Ja'Marr Chase, three of the best receivers in football and while those three all make more money than Nacua, it's the Rams superstar that continues to put up video game numbers while giving the Rams the cap space needed to build a Super Bowl roster around him.