Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua spilled some incredibly raw truth about his decision to enter an alcohol rehab facility last spring, speaking with Netflix host Elle Duncan right before the NFL’s first-ever regular season game down in Australia. It was a brutal, honest conversation that unpacked a “pretty complicated offseason” for a player who’s become one of the league’s best. The game itself didn’t go the Rams’ way, with San Francisco rolling to a 27-7 win, but Nacua still hauled in five catches.
The Brutal Truth From Down Under
Nacua, at just 25, is a rising star, a fifth-round draft pick from 2023 who quickly exploded onto the scene. But the sudden fame, coupled with becoming a father 10 months ago, clearly took a toll. Back on April 1, his attorney, Levi McCathern, announced to The California Post that Nacua had already been in rehab for “a substantial period of time… and he’s scheduled to be there for a while longer.” It turns out the football field’s physicality didn’t translate to his personal life. He told Duncan, “I learned I’m very avoidant of conflict, which is very interesting due to the football nature. I’d like to say I play very physical. Just avoidant of the things I know were causing me stress.”
Facing the Demons of Stardom and Fatherhood
The pressure of stardom and new fatherhood drove Nacua into a corner. He opened up about isolating himself and not asking for help. “I would kind of isolate myself to feel like the weight of all the issues and things I had was stuck on my shoulders and not being willing to ask for help,” he admitted to Duncan. He never shared his fears or worries, instead finding “different ways to escape I guess from that tension or that stress.” That escape, he revealed, was alcohol. Nacua confessed he was “just kind of drowning myself so that the issues and the stress that I was feeling never had the opportunity to be addressed.” But rehab changed things, letting him have those “open and honest conversations.”
Nacua is looking ahead, focused on what this experience means for his son. He wants to become a person his infant son will be proud of, to share the lessons from these “darkest times” he’s faced. He dreams of his son saying, “This is my dad,” no matter the environment. A therapist even suggested he journal to give his vivid, unending dreams the endings he wants. Netflix co-host Michael Irvin, who’s been open about his own substance abuse, echoed the sentiment, stressing that you can’t have “great growth in your profession without working on great growth in your person.” Nacua himself made similar comments to reporters in June, as reported by the Deseret News, reflecting on his difficult offseason. It sounds like he’s doing the hard work, and that’s something to respect.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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