Big Role For Emeka Egbuka
June 29th, 2025
Waiting to be unleashed?
Yes, Joe loved seeing Bucs first-round pick Emeka Egbuka look like a seasoned pro in underwear football the past couple of months.
There’s a catch: It was underwear football. It’s made to highlight skill position players, just like flag football is.
Can Egbuka carry his excellent underwear football season over as a rookie to the regular season? We have a little over two months to see. Training camp starts in less than a month — less than a month!
Over at ESPN, Jenna Laine seems to think the Bucs will use Egbuka in the regular season all over the place. So much so that Joe assumes opposing defenses each game will be constantly hollering, “Where’s nine?”
Egbuka is going to have a big role in the Bucs’ offense, especially with Chris Godwin still recovering from ankle surgery, and even after. He has shown up a ton in the short passing game — really helping Tampa Bay stretch the field horizontally, and at times looking like a running back once the ball is in his hands — but he’s also been on the end of some big plays downfield.
“The thing that sticks out is how cerebral he is,” QB Baker Mayfield said. “He’s so smart. Right now, I think we could plug-and-play him at every [wide] receiver spot; he understands the offense that well. That’s just him being a pro already.”
If Egbuka carries over his solid underwear football play to the season, Bucs new offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard ought to have all kinds of fun. If Egbuka really can play all over the field, you have to figure that ought to create mismatches and may be pull some coverage away from Evans.
If that happens, look the eff out. Evans being single-covered often means disaster for a defense.
READ NEXT
“More Explosive Than I Was Giving Him Credit For”