The Los Angeles Rams and their Puka Nacua-led cast have fresh hope in Hollywood following Super Bowl hangover

The Los Angeles Rams and their phase of reinvention has become one of the fun-filled stories of the young 2023 NFL season.

They find themselves navigating the strip-down-and-reload that always lurked in the distance after hamstringing their immediate future to devote everything to a Championship push. They are youthful, enigmatic, near-blank-canvased and unburdened by investment-fuelled expectation, the holes and hiccups that may befall them softened by the Lombardi Trophy they were left to show for their pocket-emptying approach.

Sean McVay’s side are two years removed from their Super Bowl-winning campaign, capped by a 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in what served as a defining moment for one of Mike Shanahan’s brightest disciples and so too the cash pot of Stan Kroenke.

A pool of superstars and wily veterans has since become a who’s who of ‘who’s that?’, within which has been weaved a rejuvenated McVay, an understaffed yet excelling defensive coordinator in Raheem Morris and a quarterback in Matthew Stafford who still possesses the arm talent to thrill and destroy, while being prone to the odd erratic mistake.

It wasn’t so long ago Rams General Manager Les Snead was wearing a t-shirt printed with the words ‘F*** them picks’ during the team’s Super Bowl parade, in reference to team construction strategy built heavily on trading draft picks in order to acquire ready-made contributors. It also wasn’t so long ago that he was apologising for said gesture. Spoiler: 2022 was a humbling hangover.

The Rams and their Jared Goff-Todd Gurley axis had fallen at the final hurdle. In relaunching their pursuit of a Super Bowl the Rams would trade two-first-round picks and a fourth-round pick for cornerback Jalen Ramsey to plug one of football’s toughest positons, they would acquire their perceived missing piece in quarterback Stafford for two first-round picks and a third-round pick, they would spruce up their Aaron Donald-encrusted defense by trading for future Hall of Fame ghost-move-guru edge rusher Von Miller and would sign free agent receiver Odell Beckham Jr down the stretch of their eventual Super Bowl-winning 2021 season.

Granted, Donald and Cooper Kupp formed a defining spine as existing Rams draft selections, while depth was padded out by mid-to-late round picks, but Rams glory had been built on the short-term super-team immediacy that zagged from the block-by-block zig of the Draft. Salary cap gymnastics became the winning formula, with the caveat that kicking finances down the road always threatened a transition.

In the wake of Super Bowl success the Rams saw offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth retire, Miller head to Buffalo on a lucrative contract in view of guiding a third team to a ring, and Beckham Jr departed to begin his lengthy recovery from injury. Kupp, who had led the league with 1,947 yards in 2021, and Stafford were meanwhile limited to just nine games each through injury, and Donald himself was struck down with an ankle issue in November to further hamper a team feeling the full force of a hangover. McVay’s passing attack spluttered, the offensive line was manhandled and the Rams slumped to a 5-12 finish.

Cue change. The Rams proceeded to trade Ramsey to the Miami Dolphins, released veteran linebacker Bobby Wagner and edge rusher Leonard Floyd, watched nose tackle Greg Gaines sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, parted with guard David Edwards, safeties Nick Scott and Taylor Rapp and traded Allen Robinson II to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

By May they had onboarded 38 rookies before naming 14 to the initial 53-man roster as they entered the 2023 season the second-youngest team in the league. It comes after the Rams’ stretch of not having a first-round pick reached seven years, while free agency bypassed them to the sound of little activity as the team entered the campaign supposedly carrying $75m of dead money against their salary cap for the year. Let the games begin.

It raised the curtain on a new chapter for McVay amid murmurs he had been considering his future in the NFL. A chance to tinker again with the Shanahan-cultivated scheme that had lost some spark and innovation, an opportunity to craft young talent into cornerstones of the re-modeled Rams.

The minefield of Week One overreactions aside, an opening-day 30-13 win over the Seattle Seahawks warranted some attention. One of the NFL’s most intense and intelligent young coaches was still just that, a healthy Stafford could still dunk on teams and Aaron Donald, for all the retirement talk, was still Aaron Donald.

Enter Puka Nacua, the fifth-round rookie wide receiver who has amassed 501 receiving yards from a league-high 39 catches heading into Week Five, putting him on pace to rival Calvin Johnson’s single-season record of 1,964 yards in 2012. The former BYU man’s receiving yards and receptions through his first four games mark NFL records, within which came a rookie single-game record 15 catches in the Week Two loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

He has become the centre-piece to a Kupp-less offense over the first month with a savviness for getting to his landmark and the subtle feints in cuts and sustenance to his routes that enables McVay to be diverse with his usage, whether it be deploying him in a pre-snap jet motion that extends into a deep over or sandwiching him in a three-level trips concept that relies on perfection to the timing of his break and the release of Stafford.

Alongside him Tutu Atwell is finally offering signs of being the consistent contributor they drafted in the second round in 2021, McVay’s barrage of fast motions offering the former Louisville receiver a runway on which to veil his route. The result has been 22 catches for 270 yards and a touchdown over the first four weeks, leaving him just 29 shy of surpassing the 298 receiving yards he posted in 13 games last season.

Elsewhere, 2022 fifth-round pick Kyren Williams has already run Cam Akers out of town in the backfield with a third-most five rushing touchdowns, a fourth-most 17 red zone carries and a third-most 22 targets among all running backs while playing more snaps than any player in his position through four games. His nose for the end zone is feasting behind an offensive line that has found a potential cornerstone in second-round left guard Steve Avila, a rising fleet-footed climb-and-clear run blocking asset and maul-and-brawl pass protector.

The Raheem Morris defense has its own rookie feature in third-round outside linebacker Byron Young, who has 16 tackles, two sacks and 14 pressures and seven hurries so far on the year, as well as eight quarterback hits that put him level with that of Micah Parsons and two off Nick Bosa. And they still have sixth-round rookie cornerback Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson to come as a twitchy, slightly undersized, front-foot route-jumper and deep-shot blanket who allowed a passer rating of just 34.6 with TCU last year. He is competing for a place within a secondary made up of 2022 fourth-round pick Cobie Durant, 2022 seventh-round pick Russ Yeast and 2022 sixth-round pick Derion Kendrick. Welcome to the 2023 Los Angeles Rams.

McVay’s side currently sit 2-2 with an offense ranked eighth in EPA/play and fourth in total yards on offense as well as ninth in total yards and ninth in success rate on defense. Stafford is delivering a handsome dose of wow throws, Morris is thrusting himself into head coach contention, McVay is reminding the league he is still rather special and Kupp to accompany Nacua.

The Rams are fun. The winning may be sporadic and volatile, but they are a fascinating watch as they begin life on a new arch.

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