A recent Puka Nacua interview didn’t sit well with Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd.
Last week, Nacua told the “Join the Lobby” podcast that he wants to retire from the NFL when he’s 30.
Then, on Tuesday’s episode of “The Herd with Colin Cowherd,” Cowherd said he wasn’t a fan of Nacua’s openness about his retirement plans.
“NFL general managers — here’s a little secret — they’re not looking for work-life balance. They’re not. They don’t care. They want you to be Kobe (Bryant). They want you to be obsessed. They want you to be (Tom) Brady. They want you to be Lamar Jackson," Cowherd said.
Why Puka Nacua wants to retire at 30
Nacua said he’d like “to go out on top” like his former Los Angeles Rams teammate Aaron Donald did in 2024, as the Deseret News previously reported.
His plan to retire young also stems from his desire to have a big family.
“I want to be able to be a part of their lives and be as active as I can with them,” Nacua said.
Injuries, which Nacua noted are uncontrollable, could hamper his ability to do that, he said. Last season, he missed five games due to a knee injury.
“Hopefully, the rest of the career can go healthy, but you have shoulder surgery, you have knee surgery, you have ankle. By the time my kids could be 18, I could be barely walking if you play the game and sustain all the injuries and stuff like that, but I want to retire early,” he said.
Colin Cowherd’s warning to Puka Nacua
Cowherd likened professional athletes talking about retirement to asking about vacation time in a job interview.
If Nacua has any drop off in his play this upcoming season, Cowherd thinks his retirement comments could come back to haunt him.
“I think it actually puts a light on Puka. What if next year he’s got more than a few drops? ‘Is that guy committed? Is he putting in the time?’ He misses a couple of games in a row. ‘Maybe he’s just protecting his body over team.’ You introduce questions you don’t need to introduce,” he said.
Cowherd added, “It’s not the end of the world, but you start talking retirement — this has been said for years — and you’re already there."
Aaron Rodgers comparison
Cowherd then brought up quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger, who publicly hinted at retirement before actually retiring.
“You go back and look at Aaron Rodgers — 2023 (in) Green Bay — quoted ‘I’m 90% into retirement.’ He’s never been great since. Big Ben started talking retirement late (in) Pittsburgh. It ended poorly. You can think about it. You can financially plan for it, but I wouldn’t discuss it,” he said.
But there’s a key difference between Nacua and those quarterbacks: Nacua hasn’t even started his third season in the NFL yet and should have plenty more football left in him before his play declines.
Cowherd acknowledged Nacua’s importance to the Rams, but he said that in a couple of years, the Rams could decide to target Nacua’s successor early in the NFL draft.
“If anything, it can hurt your leverage, so sometimes you just got to keep things to yourself. In talking about retirement at 23, I don’t love it. Aaron started talking about it four years ago, and I think Green Bay said, ‘Well, that Jordan Love draft pick was pretty smart after all,’ right?”
Cowherd believes Nacua should be more careful with what he says in the future.
“You can keep secrets. It doesn’t mean it’s all sinister. You don’t tell everybody everything,” he said.