The Buccaneers aren’t shopping Emeka Egbuka, and there’s a pretty simple reason why: he already looks like the kind of receiver you build around.
At 23, Egbuka finished his rookie year with 938 yards and six touchdowns on 63 catches, leading Tampa Bay in all three categories. With Mike Evans now gone after signing a three-year, $42.5 million deal with the San Francisco 49ers, Egbuka is the clear No. 1 target in the offense. That alone makes him the kind of player teams usually hang onto, not move.
Still, offseason hypotheticals are part of the fun, and ESPN’s Bill Barnwell took a swing at what the Buccaneers might land if they did entertain a deal. His answer: a first-round pick and more.
Barnwell’s concern is consistency. Egbuka flashed big-time production early, including three 100-yard games in the first half. But over the final two months, he never topped 65 yards in a game.
“Is Egbuka the guy who was on pace for a 1,288-yard season through Week 9 or the one who produced at a 555-yard pace afterward?” Barkwell asked. “This trade projection splits the difference between those scenarios.”
The late-season dip wasn’t happening in a vacuum. Tampa Bay was leaning hard on Egbuka because the receiver room kept getting hit by injuries.
Evans missed more than half the season. Chris Godwin was out for eight games.
Jalen McMillan missed all but four. Egbuka also dealt with a hamstring injury suffered Oct. 12 against the 49ers, which may have played into his second-half slowdown.
He and lightly used Kameron Johnson were the only Buccaneers receivers to play all 17 games. Johnson finished with seven catches for 64 yards.
Egbuka was targeted 127 times, the 11th-most in the NFL and more than double Evans’ 61. That workload says plenty about how much Tampa asked of him last season - and how much will be riding on him, Baker Mayfield, and the rest of the offense in 2026 now that Evans is no longer part of it.
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