SANTA CLARA – Creeping through tailgating traffic before the Rams’ game Sunday outside of Levi’s Stadium, we were treated – courtesy of a San Francisco 49ers fan with a turntable – to the familiar sounds of Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day.”
It was the first time I’d heard it since October, when Cube performed it live at SoFi Stadium at halftime of a Rams’ game. And it felt like a harbinger, the iconic L.A. rapper’s voice cutting through that sea of red. It really did.
Called up the homies, and I’m askin’ y’all / Which park, are y’all playin’ basketball?
Get me on the court and I’m trouble / Last week (messed) around and got a triple-double
Freakin’ (players) every way like MJ / I can’t believe, today was a good day!
Really though. If you roll with the Rams, it was a good day.
An historic day.
A super-sweet day.
Because they messed around and, even without their starting QB and six other starters, beat the 49ers, 21-20 – the Rams’ first victory in nine regular-season games against their Northern California rivals.
Messed around and with a team that many once thought might-oughta angle for the No. 1 pick in the next NFL Draft, clinched the NFC’s sixth seed and a storyline-rich showdown with Detroit in the wild-card round next weekend. They play at 5 p.m. Sunday.
Messed around, after a full, semi-frustrating half of football, got their rookie receiver – Puka Nacua, the No. 177 pick in last season’s draft – a huge helping of NFL history: more receiving yards (1,486) and receptions (105) than anyone in his first season in the history of the sport.
Nacua surpassed Bill Groman’s 63-year-old yardage mark, the Rams’ intensely likable lad as about as unlikely a candidate to make that kind of history as Groman had been in 1960.
Groman, who died in 2020 at 83 of natural causes, went to Heidelberg College, a small liberal arts school in his hometown of Tiffin, Ohio, before graduating and becoming a science teacher. As ESPN reported in 2015, it wasn’t until a fellow teacher invited him to lunch with her husband, former NFL head coach Bob Snyder, who asked to play catch, that any NFL doors cracked opened.
And who doesn’t like surprises?
Nacua – the Rams’ human smiley emoji out of BYU – started the season rostered in just 0.9% of ESPN’s fantasy leagues heading into Week 1. By Week 2, after he pulled down 10 passes for 119 yards in what was an upset victory over the Seattle Seahawks, he was added more than any player that week. Fantasy GMs, at least, catch on quick.
Now, Nacua has made the Pro Bowl. He’s made that preseason controversy over whether quarterback Matthew Stafford and his younger teammates could connect seem even sillier. He’s made himself a one-name star in L.A. – and made a fan of LeBron, his athletic hero.
Now you know him as Puka. Or, on social media, @asapPuka – as soon as possible fitting for a fleet-footed fellow who accomplished so much in Year 1.
Well, maybe not as soon as possible. Not on Sunday. Not with 49ers defenders determined to foil his moment as long as possible, the game within the game the most meaningful and dramatic part of a day that pitted two playoff-locked teams determined to hide their cards.
Nacua got to play Sunday only because he was so close to history, but those 29 additional yards and four catches – easy work most Sundays – were harder coming against San Francisco, which dedicated multiple defenders to the 22-year-old after his 19-yard touchdown in the first half left him 1 yard shy of breaking the record entering halftime.
“The other guys were aware of it too, because we had that series right before halftime and they were super-excited they didn’t allow it,” said Nacua, who finally knocked down both records early in the second half, first catching a short pass from fill-in QB Carson Wentz for 7 yards to surpass Groman’s mark and then, on the next play, going vertical to nab another 7-yarder on a screen for his 105th reception of the season.
“It was sweet just to find it in the flow of the game,” Nacua said.
McVay used a different term: “Nice!” And then, “Now get him out!”
“Nice, now get him out!”
Sean McVay’s reaction to Puka Nacua breaking the rookie receiving yards record is hilarious. 😂 #RamsHouse
(via @NFL, FOX)pic.twitter.com/aOCCuBj2Qw
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) January 7, 2024
“I thought it was the football gods telling me, ‘Man, this is not how you do it,’” said McVay, who made some franchise history with his 70th regular-season victory in seven years, passing Chuck Knox for the second-most victories in his team’s 88-season history.
“I’ve believed in the integrity of the game and it was one of those deals where you want to give him an opportunity to get that, because of what he put himself in a position for. But when you start getting outside of the framework of operating how you normally would, it was almost like they’re looking, ‘You know better.’
“And then I thought that first drive, (offensive coordinator) Mike (LaFleur) did a good job mixing it up, the ball naturally came to him.”
And naturally, Nacua quickly went and embraced his mom, Penina, as soon as he’d finished messing around with the NFL’s record books.
For Puka, Sunday was a definitely a good day. A day that will only bolster his argument for offensive rookie of the year, though that’ll likely go to Rancho Cucamonga’s C.J. Stroud, the Houston Texans’ quarterback.
And it was a day to reflect.
Nacua said he was thinking Sunday of his late father, Lionel Nacua, who died 12 years ago from complications of diabetes, and of his grandmother, Fa’aTamali’i S. Tafua, who died from ovarian cancer in 2021.
“Just wishing that my dad could be here to watch this moment, this game,” Nacua said, his smile as bright as ever and his eyes glistening. “And just feeling like a calmness and a peace over, because he was watching. Him and my grandma, I know they’re up there. They were out there enjoying this one with me, because there was a peace and calmness throughout the game that I was able to feel that was different from other ones. So I know they were out there with me.
“It was sweet.”
Wholesome moment with mom. 🫶 pic.twitter.com/3L4jIXu90u
— x – Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) January 7, 2024