Rams Puka Nacua Talks Buccaneers Defense

While Nacua spoke on a variety of topics, he answered specific questions about the game and the Buccaneers defense.

Q: Could you discuss Rams’ DT Aaron Donald’s legacy?

“I think it's something that Coach McVay has said recently, ‘The game honors toughness.’ If you've ever seen the guy ‘number 99’ [Aaron Donald] walk on the football field or even out here on the practice field, you know his game is toughness," said Nacua. "It's something that we feel like is an identity of ours. When you see something like that, going back to modeling the way, it adds that little bit of juice inside you.”

Q: Does having a Sunday Night Football game add juice to the matchup?

“I think it's exciting for us," stated Nacua. "The mindset we're going with is that they're big games because the Los Angeles Rams are playing in it. I think that's the mentality that we've adopted and the standard that we have for ourselves is what's pushing us to perform every day and to have the performance that we want to have on Sundays. It's exciting because we know that all the jerseys will say ‘LA Rams’ on Sunday.”

Q: What stands out about Buccaneers’ CB Jamel Dean?

“In their entire secondary, it’s the length that they have in that position group," explained Nacua. "It's nice to get some of these practices and go against some of our guys when we get our ‘ones versus ones’ reps to take advantage of the guys who we have. We have somebody who has great length in [Cornerback] Emmanuel Forbes and [Cornerback] Cobie Durant and all our DBs who have different skill sets. It's nice to get to challenge ourselves before we get out there on Sunday.”

Dean was ruled out of the contest.

Q: What stands out about the Buccaneers’ defense?

“They try to try to cause as much chaos [as possible]," stated Nacua. It forces communication. I think that's the biggest thing. It's something that I feel like we pride ourselves on in our operation. I know ‘number nine’ [Matthew Stafford] holds himself to a high standard in his ability to communicate pre-snap and post-snap with the ball and verbally. It'll be a fun challenge for everybody to be on the same page, but definitely a little bit of chaos.”