Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua claims that vegetables aren’t a part of his diet. Instead, he says he gets his nutrients from vegetables from watermelon and pineapple in the morning.
“Those are how I get some of my fiber and stuff like that because like, hey, you got to poop somehow,” Nacua said.
“And I’m like, I’m not getting it from any veggies.”
Despite the fact that Nacua doesn’t eat any vegetables, that didn’t stop him from having arguably the most productive rookie season of any wide receiver in NFL history during the 2023 campaign.
Nacua started all 17 of the Rams’ regular-season games and totaled 1,486 receiving yards, six receiving touchdowns and 68 first downs receiving while averaging 87.4 receiving yards per contest.
His 1,486 receiving yards mark the most by any rookie in the history of the league. He just narrowly beat the previous record held by Bill Groman, who racked up 1,473 receiving yards in his first year in the NFL all the way back in the 1960 season.
Additionally, Nacua totaled the fourth-most receiving yards in the NFL during the 2023 regular season. Only three players in Tyreek Hill — who ended up with a league-high 1,799 receiving yards — CeeDee Lamb and Amon-Ra St. Brown finished with a higher number of receiving yards.
Nacua finished second in the NFL AP Offensive Rookie of the Year voting behind only Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud and earned a Pro Bowl nod for the monster numbers that he put up in his inaugural season in the pros.
The 23-year-old was a big reason why the Rams finished the regular season with a 10-7 record and qualified for the playoffs.
While the Rams lost their first playoff game to the Detroit Lions by a final score of 24-23, Nacua showed out in his NFL playoff debut. He accumulated a game-high 181 receiving yards as well as one receiving touchdown on nine receptions.
Though it may seem odd that a professional football player never consumes vegetables, the historic numbers that Nacua put up as a rookie suggest that his unorthodox diet is working to his benefit.
Here’s to hoping that Nacua will build upon his fantastic 2023 regular season and play at an even higher level once the 2024 regular season commences in a few months from now.
