Chris Stapleton has two things going right now that counteract one another: The fact that he is uber-famous and the fact that he dislikes being uber-famous.
Something that doesn’t help his cause of avoiding fame is his signature look, or as he told me he calls it in a 2022 Taste of Country Nights interview, “My Costume.”
Stapleton’s signature look is his long and rugged facial hair and a hat, either a cowboy hat or a ball cap.
The “Starting Over” singer was on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expertpodcast recently where he actually spoke about a time in the future, possibly sooner than later, that he will whack his signature beard right off, and go around with a naked face exposed.
Stapleton said that part of his “retirement plan” from music is to shave off his beard to make him less recognizable. A way for him to disappear and get back some anonymity, if you will.
In my interview with him in 2022, I asked him if he gets recognized everywhere he goes in public and he said when he isn’t in his “costume,” like his cowboy hat, jewelry and performance clothes, he is sometimes able to slip by under the radar.
I would have to imagine that if he adds the shaving off of his iconic beard that his retirement plan for complete solitude might actually work.
Is Chris Stapleton Contemplating Retirement?
Based off his latest conversation on the Armchair Expert podcast, it would seem as if the country music superstar is actually contemplating stepping away from music sooner than later.
Stapleton admits “I don’t know how much longer I’ll even go play.”
Speaking of retirement, let’s take a look back at some country stars who recently retired and some that recently made their way back to music.
Country Stars Who Retired in 2024 … and More Who Came Back
Every road has to come to an end, and 2024 saw a few country stars saying goodbye to their fans. Read on to see which country singers retired in 2024 … and which ones decided to extend their time in the spotlight.
The copper and gold miner said fourth-quarter production was significantly hurt by the ongoing suspension of operations at one of its mines, though higher prices for precious metals helped boost profit.
Early in the 2026 quarterback transfer cycle, the entire landscape seemed to pause.
Brendan Sorsby planned trips to Texas Tech, LSU and Miami. Those schools stood pat as they awaited his decision. All the QBs behind Sorsby on the board? They waited too. The tentacles of Sorsby’s process extended to everyone from the top-ranked QB in the portal, Sam Leavitt, to Harvard transfer Jaden Craig.
During that time, CBS Sports heard a common question from agents, coaches and general managers alike: “What’s Sorsby going to do?”
It wasn’t just curiosity. They needed to know whether to pivot, hold tight or push someone to commit.
That’s the quarterback domino effect: One decision can cause an earthquake thousands of miles away as teams adjust on the fly when their targets come off the board.
Going into the cycle one offensive coordinator called the depth of the quarterback crop a “buyer’s market.” It quickly morphed into something different with salaries flying past the $5-million mark.
Exiting one of the most chaotic quarterback transfer cycles in history, this is an in-depth look at how the dominoes fell and the reverberations from each decision.
The winners and losers of the 2026 college football transfer portal
Cincinnati initially hoped to retain Sorsby. But after stumbling down the stretch it became clear by early December he’d enter the transfer portal.
Texas Tech and Indiana were initially the schools on Sorsby the hardest. The Red Raiders were his home-state program. The Hoosiers, pushing toward perfection, were a familiar option given that Sorsby began his career in Bloomington.
Eventually, the Red Raiders emerged as the team to beat.
But a few days before his visits were scheduled to begin, a source close to the situation indicated LSU had quietly pulled ahead. Lane Kiffin and the Tigers were recruiting Sorsby aggressively. Miami had joined the mix, too, and had the biggest offer on the table — at the time over $5 million.
What once seemed a certainty — Sorsby to Texas Tech — created uncertainty in the rest of the market.
Texas Tech got the first visit and scrambled to find a backup plan when Sorsby left campus without committing. That pulled in Sam Leavitt — who those like Kentucky were pursuing hard — and TCU’s top target Jaden Craig, and put them in wait-and-see mode based on what Sorsby would do.
The Red Raiders quickly scheduled a visit with Leavitt while Sorsby saw Baton Rouge. Craig’s camp wondered whether Texas Tech would miss on both. Craig ultimately committed to TCU before Sorsby’s decision was final. Gotta take a spot when there is one.
In the end, Sorsby landed at Texas Tech for an NIL deal a source said was worth up to $6 million a year.
Despite ranking as the No. 1 player in the 247Sports portal, Leavitt didn’t have a robust market — at least at first. He had two things working against him: 1. A foot injury that could keep him out through spring practice. 2. Arizona State did not provide kind feedback on him behind the scenes.
Top-of-the-market teams like Indiana, Texas Tech, Miami and LSU looked elsewhere. But talent tends to win out eventually, which led the latter three teams to join the race.
Texas Tech pushed for Leavitt as a Sorsby contingency. So did LSU. Miami joined the fray and Tennessee, at the last minute, did too.
LSU eventually zeroed in on Leavitt as its priority target. Then things went slightly awry when Demond Williams Jr. dropped a bombshell into the cycle with his intention to enter the portal.
The Tigers were a prime contender for Williams, and news they planned to pursue him broke while Leavitt was on LSU’s campus. That caused some tension, per a source familiar with the matter. That meant Leavitt left for a visit to Tennessee and then to Miami with LSU potentially missing out on another top QB target.
LSU brought in USC’sHusan Longstreet on a visit as a contingency, but Lane Kiffin went to Knoxville to speak with Leavitt and convinced him to pick LSU.
Then, in one of the bigger surprises of the cycle, LSU managed to get Longstreet, too.
It was an open question around Fort Worth for most of December if Hoover would stick around for his senior season. He didn’t, turning down a very competitive offer to hop in the portal.
Several teams were in pursuit of Hoover, including Texas Tech, Kentucky, Missouri and Louisville. But the two main contenders were Indiana and Ole Miss.
The Hoosiers were the heavy favorite from the moment Hoover hopped into the portal. The Rebels, believing Trinidad Chambliss‘ waiver was a long-shot effort, began recruiting Hoover aggressively as a replacement. Hoover was scheduled to visit Ole Miss but canceled that trip and committed to Indiana that same day.
Raiola had some dialogue with Louisville, but his focus never really turned away from the Ducks. Sources indicated to CBS Sports in November that Raiola wanted Oregon. He did to such a degree he was willing to back up Dante Moore for a season.
That’s exactly what he did. Oregon liked some other quarterbacks. They looked at those like Ty Simpson, Drew Mestemaker and Williams. Ultimately, Moore came back to school while the Ducks got the most qualified backup in the country.
National champion Indiana will turn to former TCU quarterback Josh Hoover in 2026.
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The Trinidad Chambliss reverberations
Chambliss’ future hung over the quarterback carousel. The Rebels were doing a delicate dance. They were selling their players and skill players in the portal that Chambliss would get his waiver for an extra year. At the same time, they were recruiting starter-turned-backup Austin Simmons to stay.
That was a consideration for Simmons. But with few answers about Chambliss’ future available and Missouri — which had missed on several targets — in need of a starter, Simmons suddenly and decisively entered the portal with a do-not-contact tag. CBS Sports reported Missouri was the team to beat within minutes of the initial report he planned to enter.
That meant the Rebels had to pivot.
Ole Miss inked Chambliss to a huge contract for the 2026 season, but sources familiar with the situation considered Chambliss’ waiver a longshot. Chambliss may get an injunction to play in 2026 from the courts, but that’s a big “IF.”
Thus the Rebels turned to transfer quarterbacks.
Ole Miss looked at several but given how late it was in the cycle they were forced to move with Chambliss’ waiver situation undecided, they mainly focused on two: Auburn’sDeuce Knightand Florida’sDJ Lagway.
Knight, a top 100 recruit in the 2025 class, left Ole Miss after just one season. He entered the portal and many teams reached out — Boston College made a big push — yet his home-state Rebels always seemed like the likely pick.
With just one game of starting experience, however, Knight was considered a risky addition on his own. So, Ole Miss zeroed in on Lagway.
A five-star passer in the 2024 class and a two-year starter for the Gators, Lagway entered the portal in a weird place. He’s an ultra-talented passer with No. 1 draft pick upside. He’s also coming off a series of major injuries and regressed in 2025. Plus, as one SEC coordinator put it to CBS Sports: “He’s DJ Lagway. He’s a huge name. He can scare off the rest of your room.”
Lagway received calls from those like LSU and Missouri. Mostly, however, it was a smaller group of schools pushing for him: Florida State, Virginia, Baylor and Stanford.
He’d visit the first three. Those around Lagway always considered it a long shot he’d pick the ‘Noles. Virginia made a very strong impression. Then he made it to Baylor’s campus — the school his dad played for — and committed to the staff.
Done and done.
Except the Rebels had been pushing for a visit. Once the excitement wore down — and when his initial outreach to potential portal receivers went largely unheeded — Lagway opted to visit Oxford.
Ole Miss had to juggle Knight and Lagway on campus at the same time. Knight committed on his trip. Lagway did not. Instead, after a long delay and a brief pursuit by Duke, he signed with Baylor.
The Rebels scrambled again. They added former Ole Miss backup Walker Howard from Louisiana to give the room some experience. They also continued to tell potential portal additions Chambliss would get an injunction from the Mississippi court system.
A path forward emerges in Trinidad Chambliss’ eligibility case
Chris Hummer
A major coaching connection
An interesting wrinkle this cycle is all the coach-quarterback connections that happened because of coaching carousel movement. We’ve seen in recent years the power of the right quarterback-coach combo — think Ben Arbuckle as OC and John Mateer as QB at Oklahoma last offseason — and it happened a ton in 2026.
Mestemakergave some consideration to Oregon. But it was a half-hearted exploration at best. He instead committed to Morris, his North Texas head coach, and gave him a building block for Oklahoma State’s future.
Alex Golesh left South Florida for Auburn, and it was the worst-kept secret in college football circles that his Bulls QB, Byrum Brown, would join him on The Plains.
You could say the same of Matt Campbell and his quarterback Rocco Becht,both of whom left Ames for Happy Valley.
It happened with James Franklin and Penn State quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer, too. The Hokies considered other QBs like Missouri’s Beau Pribula — more on him in a bit — but ultimately zeroed in on Grunkemeyer as the answer.
Not long after Florida hired Buster Faulkner came Georgia Tech backup QB Aaron Philo’s announcement that he planned to enter the portal. Faulkner was quite comfortable with Philo fronting the room along with returning freshman Tramell Jones.
It happened with Arkansas, too. Ryan Silverfield and his staff recruited East Carolina QB Katin Houser hard, but he ended up picking Illinois. So, the Razorbacks took a familiar face in AJ Hillfrom Memphis, who, just one cycle ago, was a blockbuster signee out of high school for the Tigers.
Bluegrass State machinations
Kentucky didn’t necessarily have to find a starter in the 2026 transfer portal. The Wildcats returned Cutter Boley,a Lexington native who had a promising sophomore campaign. But Kentucky was also interested in taking a big swing to capitalize on the momentum created by Will Stein’s hiring, and they made pushes for those like Leavitt and Hoover.
That spooked Boley, who found an interested suitor in Arizona State, itself in need of a QB thanks to Leavitt’s departure.
With Kentucky swinging big, Nebraska emerged as the top suitor for Notre Dame transfer Kenny Minchey, who had also been recruited hard by those like Nebraska and Wisconsin.
Minchey to Nebraska emerged as a done deal shortly after the transfer portal opened.
When it became clear the Wildcats wouldn’t land Leavitt or Hoover, they pivoted back to Minchey, which led to one of the more stunning flips of the cycle as Minchey picked the Wildcats after being publicly committed to the Huskers.
Then Nebraska had to scramble.
Within 24 hours the Huskers had UNLV transfer Anthony Colandrea — a Florida State target — on campus. They also brought Pribula for a visit at the same time.
Colandrea committed first, so he got the spot.
Florida State pivoted to Auburn transfer Ashton Daniels — another backup plan for Kentucky — as Colandrea made his Huskers push.
Things were no less calm at Louisville, which disrupted the QB cycle for a few teams, too.
The Cardinals considered a few quarterbacks but eventually — and quietly — zeroed in on Ohio State backup Lincoln Kienholz. Previously, Cincinnati and South Florida were battling for Kienholz, who was all but committed to the Bearcats earlier in the portal window.
But Kienholz pivoted when Louisville pushed. He flew for a visit and committed the same day.
This meant the Bearcats had to change course. They turned to Hauss Hejny, who South Florida and Colorado State were also courting. The Rams had just had him on campus, and they got him to sign before he could visit elsewhere. That led the Bearcats to Georgia Southern QB JC French.
Meanwhile, South Florida, which had also hoped to land Hejny or Kienholz, earned commitments from the combination of LSU’s Michael Van Buren and Mississippi State’sLuke Kromenhoek.
Kentucky pulled off a surprise by flipping former Notre Dame quarterback Kenny Minchey’s commitment from Nebraska.
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Wisconsin had one of the messiest quarterback rooms in the country this season. Billy Edwards Jr.suffered a major injury early in the campaign that basically kept him out all season, which led to the Power Four’s worst-ranked passing offense starting four different quarterbacks in 2025.
The Badgers always planned on adding a starter in the portal and it made sense for Edwards to move on, too.
Wisconsin looked at several quarterbacks in the portal, including Minchey, but they eventually zeroed in on Old Dominion’sColton Joseph as their top target. Joseph was a popular name with those like Florida State and UCF recruiting him hard.
But the Badgers were able to land the Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year, their fourth straight portal quarterback.
With Joseph off the board, UCF turned its focus to James Madison QB Alonza Barnett III, who was also a person of interest for South Florida.
North Carolina loved Edwards and quickly landed on him out of the portal. That led to the Tar Heels’ 2025 starter, Gio Lopez, transferring to Wake Forest.
Beau Pribula’s winding path
If you’re looking for a singular example of the craziness of the portal quarterback cycle, look no further than Pribula, who took the following visits before finding a home:
Virginia Tech: The Hokies were long considered Pribula’s likely landing spot upon his entry to the portal. It would have been a reunion for Pribula with James Franklin and most of the old Penn State staff. When it became apparent it’d be either Grunkemeyer or Pribula for the Hokies — Grunkemeyer wasn’t going to transfer and sit — Virginia Tech chose the younger QB. That sent Pribula scrambling.
Nebraska: Colandrea committed first while both he and Pribula were on campus, and the Huskers were only going to take one QB.
Washington: The Huskies contacted Pribula within an hour of Williams announcing his intent to enter the portal. But they were always open with Pribula’s camp that their preference was to take Williams back. That they did.
Tennessee: When the Vols missed on Leavitt, they brought in Pribula for a visit to campus. It didn’t end up being a fit.
Virginia: Finally, a match! Pribula visited Charlottesville and committed shortly after.
As Miami made its championship push a fascinating subplot occurred: Who the heck would play QB for the Hurricanes in 2026?
For the third offseason in a row Miami opted to go big-game hunting. The Hurricanes wanted Sorsby. He picked Texas Tech. They wanted Leavitt. He went with LSU. They wanted Williams. He couldn’t get out of his Washington contract. They wanted Ty Simpson once he left Alabama for the NFL, but he spurned a huge Miami offer to stay in the draft.
Duke files lawsuit against star QB Darian Mensah in wake of last-minute transfer portal entry request
Chris Hummer
Miami’s options dwindled as the days counted down on the portal. By deadline day the top 26 players in the 247Sports quarterback rankings were off the board. The Hurricanes were out of options.
Then came a late earthquake — Duke star QB Darian Mensah opted to enter.
The Hurricanes had always liked Mensah, and when they needed a QB most, he opted to break a once record-setting contract and jump into the open market. Problem solved for Miami, which is the clear favorite to land him.
All the problems in the world were created for Duke. Another domino. Another team feeling the aftereffects. Except, in this case, there aren’t any really starting-caliber dominoes left in play.
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Cloudier skies with mostly light winds and dry conditions have allowed for the mixing of the air at the surface with yesterday’s warmth not escaping to space as much this morning as yesterday morning. Air temperatures in the north are starting off in the upper single digits while most are ranging from […]
DAKAR, Senegal — The U.N. World Food Program said Tuesday that more than a million people in northeastern Nigeria could lose access to emergency food and nutrition aid within weeks unless funding is secured, as violence and hunger surge in the region.
The food agency of the United Nations said in a statement it will sharply scale back assistance, limiting it to only 72,000 people in February, down from 1.3 million assisted during last year’s lean season, which runs from May to October.
WFP has provided food assistance in northeastern Nigeria since 2015, reaching nearly two million people a year in hard-hit areas.
“Despite generous contributions that sustained WFP’s life-saving aid to the most vulnerable in recent months, those limited resources have now been exhausted,” the agency’s statement on Thursday read.
“This will lead to catastrophic humanitarian, security and economic consequences for the most vulnerable people who have been forced to flee their homes in search of food and shelter,” David Stevenson, WFP’s Nigeria Country Director, said.
Renewed violence in Nigeria has displaced around 3.5 million people in recent months, destroyed food supplies, and worsened malnutrition to critical levels in several northern states. Widespread attacks by various armed groups have deterred farmers from using their land, officials said.
The West African country also has been hard hit by a massive scaling down of U.N. food assistance following U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to gut the United States Agency for International Development.
Nigeria is one of several countries in the region where the cut to USAID has deepened the food crisis. In July, WFP suspended food assistance across West and Central Africa.
Swedish melodic death metal pioneers Dark Tranquillity are teaming up with progressive metal outfit Soen for the Scandinavian Heavy Arts Tour, hitting stages across North America this spring alongside openers Persefone. The tour kicks off on March 27 at The Forge in Joliet, IL and wraps up about a month later on April 25 at Saint Andrew’s Hall in Detroit, MI. Get your tickets here.
3/27 Joliet, IL The Forge 3/28 Minneapolis, MN Varsity Theater 3/30 Denver, CO The Oriental Theater 3/31 Salt Lake City, UT The Urban Lounge 4/2 Seattle, WA Neptune Theatre 4/3 Vancouver, BC Rickshaw Theatre 4/4 Portland, OR Hawthorne Theatre 4/6 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall 4/7 Los Angeles, CA The Regent Theater 4/8 Mesa, AZ The Nile Theater 4/10 Dallas, TX Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall 4/11 Austin, TX Come And Take It Live 4/13 Atlanta, GA Hell at The Masquerade 4/14 Orlando, FL The Beacham 4/16 Charlotte, NC The Underground 4/17 Towson, MD The Recher 4/18 Philadelphia, PA Brooklyn Bowl 4/19 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club 4/21 New York, NY TBA 4/22 Montreal, QC Theatre Beanfield 4/23 Toronto, ON Phoenix Concert Theatre 4/24 Cleveland, OH House Of Blues 4/25 Detroit, MI Saint Andrew’s Hall
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McCormick & Co. reported higher sales in its fiscal fourth quarter and said momentum is expected to continue this year. However, the company continues to face higher costs that are eating into profit.
Sarah Barshop covers the Los Angeles Rams for ESPN. She joined ESPN in 2016 to cover the Green Bay Packers for ESPN Milwaukee. She then moved to Houston to cover the Texans. She came to ESPN after working as a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated.
It was during the Los Angeles Rams‘ organized team activities in 2023, not long after Nacua was drafted in the fifth round. Kupp, entering his seventh NFL season, was participating in meetings virtually as he awaited the birth of his third son.
But even over video call, Nacua quickly realized how valuable it would be to get to learn from the veteran receiver.
That moment was memorable, Nacua said, because after hearing Kupp speak, he quickly realized he had a mentor in the Rams wide receivers room.
“I heard the voice of Cooper Kupp before I ever saw the person of Cooper Kupp,” Nacua said. “I was like, I feel like this is our other coach. I just don’t know what he looks like.”
When Kupp left the Rams over the offseason, the unofficial role of Nacua’s mentor became available.
Enter Davante Adams, whose knowledge “is something different from what we’re used to, having somebody like ‘Coop’ in the system for a long time,” Nacua said in June. During OTAs last spring, Nacua asked Adams to lead drills because he wanted to make sure he could watch Adams himself. It wasn’t just about respect, Nacua said. It was about the young receiver genuinely wanting to learn.
Through his time with both veteran receivers, Nacua’s game has matured thanks to learning “two different mentalities of attacking greatness.” During his rookie season, Nacua focused on soaking up as much game knowledge as he could from Kupp, following the advice of Rams receivers coach Eric Yarber to “hold on to Cooper’s coattail” and “do whatever he says.”
That crash course from Kupp paid off immediately, as Nacua finished his first NFL season by setting the rookie record with 105 catches for 1,486 yards.
And then this offseason the Rams made a big change in their receivers room, releasing Kupp after nine seasons and signing Adams. But Nacua adjusted to the changes and still found ways to take previous learnings from Kupp and ask necessary questions of Adams to evolve his game. From pushing each other, to enhanced nutrition to route running and catching the ball, Nacua has experienced how the veteran wideouts play the game, and he’s all the better for it. And the mentee will be with his mentors on Sunday when Nacua and Adams face off against Kupp’s Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game (6:30 p.m. ET, Fox).
“I think [Nacua’s] been really fortunate to be around two great players that were willing to share,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said of the influence Kupp and Adams have had on Nacua. “It’s one thing to be around somebody, it’s another thing to be able to have that willingness and that ability to have high-level communication. They have a big-picture understanding, not exclusively through the lens of a receiver. And [Nacua’s] willing to listen.
“… To his credit, he’s taken that. He’s got the right kind of humility and the right kind of curiosity, and I think those are usually recipes for success.”
WHILE NACUA SPENT his rookie season learning from Kupp, it was their first offseason together that helped the young receiver take the next step.
The Thursday before Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, Kupp texted Nacua to invite him to his weekday workouts.
And so began their offseason routine. Nacua was at Kupp’s house at 6 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays and at noon on Tuesday and Thursday to workout with the veteran receiver.
“I remember the first week I came back, I think I threw up every day of the week,” Nacua said last offseason. “And he wasn’t a fan of that. It was on his lawn and stuff. It’s not like we’re here at the facility, it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re throwing up in my bushes, Puka. Thanks.’ But it was super fun.”
Added Kupp in 2024: “We were focused on just pushing each other, trying to get better. He’s willing to work. He knows that one of the hardest things is to have success early and then be able to continue to push and say there’s more out there. He’s done a great job of that and put the right foot forward to be able to set himself up to be able to go do something pretty special this year.”
That offseason — fueled by witnessing how Kupp works on his body during the break between seasons — Nacua rebuilt his body. He then focused on nutrition, cutting back on fried and inflammatory foods he often ate his rookie year. During his rookie season, he’d drive home from the team facility and stop at fast food restaurants he’d see from Burger King, Jack in the Box or his favorite, McDonald’s.
In his second season, Nacua played in just 11 games after injuring his knee during training camp and then aggravating the injury in Week 1. He returned in Week 8 and finished the regular season with 79 catches for 990 yards and three receiving touchdowns.
The Rams’ season ended in the snow in Philadelphia in the divisional round of the playoffs, with Nacua catching six passes for 97 yards and Kupp five for 61 yards.
Less than two months later, the Rams had retooled their receiver room, releasing Kupp and signing Adams.
“It wasn’t necessarily like a Cooper for Davante,” McVay said. “It was another great player where you felt like you could acquire two No. 1s with the emergence and the ascension of Puka and then what Davante’s done and being able to play that ‘X’ receiver and some of the things that we would ask.
“Guys like that usually don’t become free agents. They don’t hit free agency. We wanted to be aggressive in our pursuit to be able to add talent to our roster.”
ADAMS HADN’T BEEN in Los Angeles long when Nacua had a request. The third-year receiver asked Adams to lead the receivers line this season and it wasn’t just to show respect to the veteran wide receiver.
Nacua wanted to make sure he could watch Adams do drills in practice instead of having to do the drill, turn around and watch.
“The common theme with him since I’ve been here is just being an open vessel, always being open and willing to learn,” Adams said.
During OTAs, training camp and practice, Nacua has watched Adams do the drills, seeing up close how the receiver sells his routes. Yarber said Nacua has “seen a lot of Davante’s releases and how he sets up people” with how the veteran receiver runs routes.
“One thing that I’ve seen him learn from Davante is making all his routes look the same,” Yarber said. “Each stem looks the same, so they don’t know if you’re going vertical or you’re breaking out or you’re breaking in. He does a good job of that.”
“Davante has told him, ‘Hey, you got to make them believe it.’ They have to feel it. You just can’t go through the motions. You got to be really looking like you’re going inside and then change direction.”
There have been times this season when Nacua said he has gotten to the top of the route with “the footwork that was required, I felt like Davante Adams out there.”
“The routes that we’ve run in our offense and then adding a new different touch to it, it feels nice,” Nacua said. “It’s like learning a new dance.”
While Nacua is learning from Adams on the field, the interactions in the meeting rooms are what stand out to Yarber. When the Rams receivers are watching film, Nacua will ask Adams what he saw or what he was trying to get out of the route. And then, Nacua will ask Adams to critique his routes.
“How did you think I did on that?” Yarber said of Nacua’s questions. “Should I have gone harder inside?'”
“And one thing about Puka, he’ll go out there and try to execute it,” Yarber said. “He’s not afraid to fail.”
And while McVay gave credit to Nacua for the work he continues to put in, he also said the young receiver has clearly taken advantage of playing and being around Adams.
“He’s really leaned into Davante [Adams],” McVay said. “I think Davante’s helped him continue to take his game to another level,
Adams called getting to come to Los Angeles “and have somebody like [Nacua] to work with” a “dream situation.”
Adams said the respect he can tell Nacua has for him, “is flattering, but it also makes me just want to pour more into him and the rest of the receivers.”
“It’s just been an all-around blessing being around really this whole room, but obviously Puka in particular, having a dude that can come in and have the type of year that he has and still have the humility to be as humble as what he is and continues to be,” Adams said.
AFTER NACUA’S SOPHOMORE season ended, he sat down with Yarber to discuss what he wanted to improve on over the offseason.
Yarber challenged him to eliminate drops. The receivers coach said he told Nacua that his drops are not because of his hands, but “because you’re popping your head and trying to run before you catch the ball.”
“Now he’s doing a better job of catching the ball first and letting the run take care of itself,” Yarber said. “He’s athletic enough that the most important thing as a receiver is to catch the ball. And then I tell him, ‘I’ll let you run after that.’ And that’s what he’s doing. He’s catching the ball first.”
It’s something McVay said Nacua has really worked on.
“He’s always had great natural hands, but sometimes these guys that have those great hands, you can almost start to get up field before you end up looking the ball all the way in,” McVay said.
It hasn’t been perfect, as Nacua has four drops this season, according to ESPN Research. In 2023, Nacua had nine drops, which is tied for the second most in the NFL. In 11 games last season, Nacua had just one, which was tied for the second fewest among the 38 players with at least 100 targets this season, according to ESPN Research. His four drops in 2025 are tied for the 26th most in the NFL.
The other goal Yarber gave Nacua was to work on cutting off of the correct foot. Early in his career, Nacua would “be in such a hurry to run his routes that he would cut off the wrong foot,” Yarber said.
Part of the journey of improving his nutrition that started while working with Kupp has helped Nacua in his route running.
“He’s got much better body control right now,” Yarber said. “He lost a lot of body fat which enabled him to move efficiently. Now when he puts his foot in the ground, the momentum and the excess fat is not keeping him in that same momentum. Now when he puts his foot in the ground, it’s going in a different direction.”
Still, despite a season in which he had a career-high 129 catches for 1,715 yards and 10 receiving touchdowns, there were growing pains for the third-year receiver.
It was evident after the Rams’ Week 16 overtime loss in Seattle. Instead of answering questions about his 12-catch, 225-yard and two-touchdown-catch performance, Nacua was answering questions about his rocky week off the field.
Two days before the Thursday night game, Nacua appeared on a livestream where he made a gesture that has been associated with antisemitic themes. (He later apologized and said he had “no idea” of the nature of the gesture.) He also said in that livestream he thinks some NFL referees make calls just to get shown on TV during games. After the game, Nacua posted on X, “Can you say i was wrong. Appreciate you stripes for your contribution. Lol.” Nacua was fined $25,000 for his comments.
While McVay said after the game that he doesn’t think Nacua was distracted, he said he was going to put his arm around the receiver and “and help him learn and grow” from the incidents.
On the bus after the game, Nacua said Adams checked in on him, providing a different type of mentorship than had been required earlier in the season.
“It was honestly very quickly on the bus on the travel back, but then obviously just throughout the week he was checking in on me, just being there to communicate and asking if there’s anything … that I needed to communicate to the guys or to just get off of my chest to be able to feel free?” Nacua said. “I know he was a listening ear and it was greatly appreciated.”
Nacua and the Rams will be back in the same spot on Sunday afternoon in the NFC Championship Game, hoping not only for a different result than in Week 16, but that the pairing of Nacua and Adams will be the move the Rams needed to get back to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 2021 season.
“I think there’s no way the football gods would rather have it be than for us to go back up there and see the all-father [Cooper Kupp] and get a chance to right our wrongs,” Nacua said.
In a significant policy reversal, President Donald Trump has backed away from his previous threats to take over Greenland, instead agreeing with NATO on a framework for Arctic security.A European official familiar with the discussions revealed that NATO members considered a compromise involving Denmark and the alliance working with the U.S. to establish more military bases on Greenland. “It’s the ultimate long-term deal, and I think it puts everyone in a really good position, especially as it pertains to security and minerals and everything else,” Trump said. He also indicated that the details are still being finalized. White House Spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Hearst Television in a statement, “If this deal goes through, and President Trump is very hopeful it will, the United States will be achieving all of its strategic goals with respect to Greenland, at very little cost, forever. President Trump is proving once again he’s the Dealmaker in Chief.”This marks a major shift from Trump’s earlier comments, in which he insisted that Greenland was “our territory.” Trump also canceled new tariffs on eight European nations that were scheduled to take effect on Feb. 1, which were initially imposed due to their opposition to his Greenland proposals. When Trump initially announced the sweeping new tariffs, U.S. markets logged their biggest losses since October as investors reacted to the announcement. Shortly after he walked back the tariffs, the stock market rebounded, and European leaders expressed relief after spending the last few days discussing economic retaliation against the United States. Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
WASHINGTON —
In a significant policy reversal, President Donald Trump has backed away from his previous threats to take over Greenland, instead agreeing with NATO on a framework for Arctic security.
A European official familiar with the discussions revealed that NATO members considered a compromise involving Denmark and the alliance working with the U.S. to establish more military bases on Greenland.
“It’s the ultimate long-term deal, and I think it puts everyone in a really good position, especially as it pertains to security and minerals and everything else,” Trump said. He also indicated that the details are still being finalized.
White House Spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Hearst Television in a statement, “If this deal goes through, and President Trump is very hopeful it will, the United States will be achieving all of its strategic goals with respect to Greenland, at very little cost, forever. President Trump is proving once again he’s the Dealmaker in Chief.”
This marks a major shift from Trump’s earlier comments, in which he insisted that Greenland was “our territory.”
Trump also canceled new tariffs on eight European nations that were scheduled to take effect on Feb. 1, which were initially imposed due to their opposition to his Greenland proposals.
Shortly after he walked back the tariffs, the stock market rebounded, and European leaders expressed relief after spending the last few days discussing economic retaliation against the United States.
Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
The hand stencil is more than 15,000 years older than a painting in another cave on Sulawesi that the same team dated in 2024. That painting, which depicted three human-like figures interacting with a pig, is thought to be about 51,200 years old.
“I thought we were doing pretty well then, but this one image just completely blew that other one away,” Brumm said.
“It really just shows how long people have been making rock art in that part of the world,” he said. “It’s a very long time.”
Researchers hope to find even older art, including storytelling art, in and around Indonesia, much of which remains archaeologically unexplored, he added.
Liang Metanduno is a well-known site for cave art that is open to tourists. But most of the art found so far is paintings depicting chickens and other domesticated animals that are thought to be much more recent, about 4,000 years old.
In 2015, Indonesian rock art specialist Adhi Oktaviana, the paper’s lead author, noticed faint images behind more recent ones that he thought could be hand stencils.
“No one had ever observed them before. No one even knew that they were there,” Brumm said. “But Adhi spotted them.”
For generations, researchers studying Ice Age cave paintings in places like France and Spain, which are about 30,000 to 40,000 years old, “thought, wow, this is really where true art began, true modern human artistic culture,” Brumm said.
Recent discoveries in Indonesia, he said, show that humans outside Europe were making “incredibly sophisticated” cave art tens of thousands of years earlier, “before our species ever even set foot in that part of the world.”
Brumm said the discovery was also interesting because it may shed light on when the first humans arrived in his home country of Australia.
Though Aboriginal peoples are widely accepted as being in Australia for at least 50,000 years, one archaeological site in the country is said to be 65,000 years old.
“Now that we’re finding rock art dating to 67-68,000 years ago on the island of Sulawesi, which is essentially on Australia’s doorstep, it does make it considerably more likely that modern humans indeed were in Australia at least 65,000 years ago,” Brumm said.
