Puka Nacua’s Dynasty Value | Fantasy Outlook, Ranking, and More

Los Angeles Rams WR Puka Nacua went from random dart throw rookie pick to an established dynasty WR1. It goes without saying that Nacua’s fantasy football value has skyrocketed. Where does his dynasty value stand heading into the 2024 offseason?

Puka Nacua’s Dynasty Outlook

In dynasty rookie drafts, the overwhelming majority of high-quality fantasy assets come from the first two rounds. Most come from the first round. Every year, there are only a handful of useful players that are selected in Round 3 or later. If you can average one useful player every two years that goes Round 3 or later, that’s a win. Nacua is already worth about a decade of wins.

Nothing about Nacua’s athletic profile or college production suggested “megastar.” He’s got good size at 6’2″, 210 pounds, but his measureables pointed to a slow, unathletic player that would do well to even hang around in the NFL for five years.

Players that look and test like Nacua rarely matter, so when we see a quality season, there’s reason to be skeptical. Had Nacua surprised everyone with a 60-catch, 700-yard season, we’d be paying attention but wouldn’t exactly be salivating. I surmise most would chalk it up to Cooper Kupp not being fully healthy and the Rams lacking a clear second option in the passing game.

However, when a player does what Nacua did as a rookie, it doesn’t matter what his draft capital is; we’re noticing. It’s time to throw college performance out the window and evaluate him purely based on what we saw last season.

College production is extremely important for evaluating how a player will perform in the NFL. As with anything, though, it must be used correctly. Far too often, I see analysis of young players that includes college production after we’ve already seen them play in the NFL.

College production stops mattering once we have proof of concept at the professional level, good or bad. After Nacua just recorded the single-greatest receiving season by a rookie wide receiver in the history of the NFL, suffice it to say I couldn’t care less about his poor athletic testing and below-average college stats.

As a rookie, Nacua caught 105 passes for 1,486 yards — both NFL records. The young man commanded a 28.7% target share and was targeted on a whopping 29.1% of his routes run. Those numbers ranked 11th and sixth, respectively. Nacua averaged 17.6 fantasy points per game and finished as the overall WR6.

Now, to be fair, Matthew Stafford is the kingmaker. He has now architected the greatest season for a wide receiver in NFL history (2021 Cooper Kupp), the second-greatest season for a WR in league history (2012 Calvin Johnson), and the greatest rookie season for a receiver (2023 Nacua).

And perhaps his most impressive feat of all was tricking the world into thinking Kenny Golladay was good at football.

The fact that Stafford is entering his age-36 season definitely matters for Nacua’s long-term value. To be clear, I’m not saying Nacua is a product of Stafford. But if Stafford were to get hurt and the Rams were left floundering at quarterback, it would negatively impact Nacua’s value.

It’s just not possible to fully separate player from quarterback. Great players will be great regardless, but they can’t possibly be as great if they have poor quarterback play.

The good news is Nacua will be 23 years old as a sophomore. He has another decade of football in front of him. He’s the exact type of player dynasty managers want to buy.

MORE: Fantasy Football Updated WR Dynasty Rankings

I completely buy into what he showed us as a rookie. We’ve seen random spike seasons before from mediocre players, but we’ve never seen one have this good of a rookie season end up being a fluke. Nacua is here to stay.

Stafford should be able to play another 3-4 years if he wants to. There’s really no reason to be thinking about Nacua’s value beyond that. But even once Stafford is retired, there’s no reason to doubt Nacua’s ability to perform at a high level with a new quarterback. Perhaps it won’t be as good, but if Nacua goes from averaging around 18 points per game to 16 points per game, we can live with that.

Nacua’s Dynasty Ranking

Where does Nacua land in the dynasty WR landscape going into the 2024 offseason? Here are Katz’s latest rankings, featuring where Nacua lands in comparison to other top names at the position.

1) Justin Jefferson | MIN
2) Ja’Marr Chase | CIN
3) CeeDee Lamb | DAL
4) Amon-Ra St. Brown | DET
5) Puka Nacua | LAR
6) Garrett Wilson | NYJ
7) Tyreek Hill | MIA
8) A.J. Brown | PHI
9) Chris Olave | NO
10) Jaylen Waddle | MIA
11) Brandon Aiyuk | SF
12) DK Metcalf | SEA
13) Michael Pittman Jr. | IND
14) DeVonta Smith | PHI
15) Drake London | ATL
16) Jordan Addison | MIN
17) DJ Moore | CHI
18) Jaxon Smith-Njigba | SEA
19) Tank Dell | HOU
20) Nico Collins | HOU
21) Rashee Rice | KC
22) Tee Higgins | CIN
23) Zay Flowers | BAL
24) Deebo Samuel | SF

Should You Trade Nacua in Dynasty?

Are you considering trading Nacua? Our free PFN Trade Analyzer allows you to find the best trade offer to make in seconds!

To quote Randy Jackson, “Yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me dawg.”

Despite my aversion to letting anyone else have Nacua, every player is tradeable at the right price. If someone is offering you Chris Olave, Michael Pittman Jr., and a rookie first-rounder, go ahead and let him enjoy Nacua. That’s an admittedly absurd example to illustrate the point.

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Nacua should be treated like an elite dynasty asset because he is. He should be viewed the same way we’re viewing Garrett Wilson, A.J. Brown, and to a slightly lesser extent, Amon-Ra St. Brown.

The best course of action regarding Nacua is to go to his manager in leagues where you don’t have him and see if you can get him. There is a stigma attached to seemingly elite NFL players who weren’t viewed that way coming out of college. Fantasy managers can sometimes be reluctant to accept we all undershot a player’s skill so severely.

Nacua’s lack of draft capital and college buzz could make him easier to acquire than someone like Wilson or St. Brown. You want Nacua on your dynasty team. If you can get him at a reasonable price, buy, buy, buy!