Puka Nacua opens up about sharp pains from injury; Aaron Donald concern grows

Puka Nacua is back on the practice field and expected to play on Sunday against the Eagles in Philadelphia.Now, for the first time in three weeks, the Rams wide receiver is also filling in the blanks about the injury that has sidelined him for the team’s last two games. Nacua practiced for the second consecutive day Thursday, another encouraging step toward his return.The Rams officially listed Nacua as a limited participant Thursday.

Nacua had a slightly different interpretation.He told reporters he was a full participant.“Today being a full participant in practice, I was definitely able to work through some of the rustiness,” Nacua said.Whatever label gets slapped on the injury report, the more important development is that Nacua is moving again after spending the past two Sundays watching the Rams play without him.He missed Los Angeles’ 28-6 victory over the Giants and last week’s 30-26 loss to the Broncos after aggravating an injury that Nacua described Thursday as being in his “hip area.”Nacua said the issue created “some restriction” in his movement, something he initially tried to push through before his body finally won the argument.“In some of the change-of-direction stuff, some of the stuff in my hip area just was not feeling great.

It was causing me some pain and some restriction in some of my movements,” Nacua said.“I was trying to grind through it, but definitely some sharp pains that I started to feel that put me down.”Nacua dealt with a similar injury in roughly the same neighborhood during training camp.

He left a scrimmage with the Saints on Aug.20 and missed a couple weeks before returning to play in the team’s opener against the 49ers in Australia. The earlier injury was diagnosed as a psoas injury, but Nacua said the latest injury was in a “very similar area.” However, he stressed it was triggered by “a different movement that I had felt that pain on.

In the same area, though.”In other words, same ZIP cod...