Often, a mediocre NFL player will surrender a number to a more established new teammate. When Rams receiver Puka Nacua, one of the best young wideouts in the game, quickly handed No. 17 to newcomer Davante Adams, it seemed strange.
Nacua is established. He’s too big to be expected to give up his number to a player who is entering, at best, the downward slope of his career.
As it turns out, Nacua already intended to switch from No. 17 to No. 12 (his number at BYU) since his rookie year.
In a Tuesday session with reporters, Nacua said he had planned to make the move. “It was perfect timing,” Nacua said.
Nacua didn’t do it sooner because it would have been expensive.
“They make you file out some paperwork before switching over your jersey number,” Nacua said. “And it was going to cost me a pretty hefty amount my rookie year and I didn’t have that money so I said, ‘I’ll wait the whole year.’ And it was just how the timing worked out on when they stopped making the jerseys and stuff like that. So 17 was free for Davante when he came over.”
In other words, Nacua wanted to change for 2024. But it would have cost too much to do that. So he waited a year, when it would cost him nothing. And he was changing from No. 17 to No. 12 as of 2025.
Which made No. 17 available for Adams.
Put simply, Nacua was giving up No. 17 anyway. It just so happened that Adams — who has worn No. 17 for his entire career — was coming to town. While it looks like Nacua deferred to Adams, the truth is Nacua was done with the number Adams wanted to wear.