As the Rams keep grinding through their Week 1 prep, the biggest unknowns hanging over the roster are Alaric Jackson and Puka Nacua. The NFL has already started wrapping up some of its offseason investigations, and the league has begun issuing suspensions. Last Friday, James Pearce Jr. received an eight-week suspension after his incident this offseason.
That has naturally raised the question in Los Angeles: when will Jackson or Nacua get their answer?
The Rams may already have some sense of where things stand. Teams typically hear before anything is made public. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported last week that he believed both Jackson’s and Nacua’s cases were under review by the league, and he also said it was possible Nacua could miss Week 1 against the 49ers.
For now, though, the Rams are still waiting on the league to make it official. Jackson and Nacua were not part of Friday’s round of suspensions, and with the regular season drawing closer, the delay is starting to feel more notable.
There is, however, no Week 1 deadline forcing the NFL’s hand. It would obviously help the Rams if the league resolved everything before opening day, but that is not a requirement.
The NFL has let these situations stretch well beyond the start of the season before. In 2024, Von Miller was suspended four games in an Oct. 1 announcement and wound up missing Weeks 5-8.
Ezekiel Elliott’s six-game suspension in 2017 was announced on Aug. 11, but after a long appeals process, he did not begin serving it until Nov. 9 and sat out until Week 10.
Jackson’s situation feels like the more immediate one. Earlier this summer, he was arrested on felony domestic battery chargers, though officials later declined to file those charges.
That does not automatically clear him in the NFL’s eyes. His case was assigned for pre-filing diversion, which matters under the league’s Personal Conduct Policy because the league views a diversionary program as a violation.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk put it this way: “Basically, the diversion program is an alternative to a guilty plea or a full-blown prosecution. It’s not an exoneration. For the league, it’s enough to constitute a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy.”
Now that the legal process has run its course, the NFL has a firmer foundation to work from in its investigation. Pearce Jr.’s case followed a similar path, with a diversion program eventually leading to an eight-game suspension. Jackson’s situation could move quickly from here, especially since a domestic violence charge is an automatic six-game suspension and this would be his second offense, which points toward something longer.
Nacua is a different story. Schefter reported that he could be suspended for Week 1, but the league has more reason to hold off.
His case is still part of an ongoing civil process, and the NFL usually waits for that to play out rather than stepping in early. Right now, there is nothing concrete for the league to act on.
The allegations remain unproven, and a court date was pushed back after Nacua’s team asked for it to be rescheduled until after Sept. 7.
That doesn’t mean the door is closed. If the allegations are later proven true, the NFL could still suspend Nacua during the season. But at this moment, a pre-Week 1 suspension doesn’t appear to make much sense.
The Rams seem to be preparing for Jackson to be the more likely issue. Over the past few weeks, they have added veteran tackles Blake Hance, Bryce Henderson, and Bill Murray, giving themselves more depth if Jackson is sidelined.
If the suspension is lengthy, the Rams could lean on David Quessenberry, rookie Keagen Trost, or even look outside the building for another option such as Taylor Decker.
Still, none of that matters until the NFL actually rules. There’s no hard deadline for the league to decide anything before Week 1, so this could spill into the season. For now, the Rams are planning as if both Jackson and Nacua are available, while keeping contingencies ready if the answer changes.
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