Statistical intel surfaces.
If you heard Joe ask the following question once, you’ve heard him ask the question at least a dozen times.
“What the hell happened to Emeka Egbuka?”
We may now know.
Last year then-Bucs rookie wide receiver tore up the league before the Bucs bye, making Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht look like a genius when half the football world mocked him as “Millen” for drafting a receiver in the first round despite having Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan already on the roster.
Then, after the bye, you can count on one hand how many big catches Egbuka made the rest of the season and still have a finger or two left over. It’s like he was kidnapped.
Joe was even waiting for his phone to explode in the dark of the night with an Amber alert for Egbuka. Not surprisingly, the Bucs lost seven of their final nine games and watched the Stinking Panthers play in the playoffs.
Joe figured part of the reason for Egbuka’s disappearance was that he hit the rookie wall. Hard. A notion that was sort of reinforced by Egbuka’s position coach Bryan McClendon last week.
Alas, it seems Ben Solak of ESPN found the smoking gun as to what happened with Egbuka (Joe wishes he could have access to deep NextGen stats like the corporate media types).
It seems after Egbuka suffered a hamstring injury a third of the way through the season, NextGen Stats documents that Egbuka lost his burst.
A Week 6 hamstring injury robbed him of his top speed; NFL Next Gen Stats tracking data had Egbuka with 11 routes of at least 18 miles per hour through the first five weeks of the season … and 11 such routes in the remaining 12 weeks, after the hamstring injury. His only 100-plus-yard game after the injury was against New England in Week 10, after the bye week gave him extra time to recuperate.
And that 115-yard game against the Russinis, 52 yards came on two passes.
The first thing that comes to mind is, kudos to the Bucs for keeping Egbuka’s injury under wraps. The second thing is, the AdventHamstring Training Center lived up to its name once again.
And now, along with Baker Mayfield (who we learned from Lavonte David after the season was beat to hell), Bucky Irving, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Tristan Wirfs, Ben Bredeson, Cody Mauch, Luke Goedeke, Jalen McMillan and now Egbuka, the Bucs offense really was the walking wounded last season.
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