Rams' Puka Nacua Shared Heartfelt Reason For Missing OTAs

“Oh yeah, this was months ago. He's traveling with his family, pretty cool opportunity. Got to be able to go travel with his mom. He was getting back today. He'll be here so he's done a great job of communicating a couple months ago."

On Tuesday, Nacua revealed the real reason. He went with his mother to visit his grandmother's village in Samoa.

“Yeah so I got to go, me and my mom. We got to go back and we went to go visit my grandma's village and we had went with the hospital group from the Utah Valley University, a group of graduated nurses and they went to go do testing at two elementary schools and a high school. They had an open clinic over there in Apia, Samoa," Nacua said.

"It was a truly great experience to be able to experience that with my mom. My first time out of the country to go back to my grandma's village. My grandma came from Western Samoa to California and that's where my parents were met. And so just to have the kind of full circle moment and to be able to experience… my father passed away from diabetes so it was something that’s very common in the Polynesian culture. And so to be able to go improve that situation in the homeland was something sweet.”

Nacua then brought up the trip again when asked about what has been the highlight of his offseason so far.

“I know meeting LeBron was definitely pretty high on my list as a kid, but just the time I got to spend with my mom and going back to visit my grandma's village, I think was something very special for me and for my family. I can't wait for next year to come around and to get that trip planned a little bit early so I'm not missing any football, but to take my family and for everybody to experience that.”

Samoa has experienced several massive health crises over the course of the past 25 years and even more issues beyond that. Nacua's work should garner him some consideration for the Walter Payton Man of the Year award.