Who Is WR3?
May 29th, 2025
Receiver puzzle.
It’s a good question. And “this Joe” is pretty confident the answer is clear.
Over at the PFF tribe, Bradley Locker has a pressing question for each NFL team in the early stages of underwear football season.
For the Bucs, Locker asks, so who is the Bucs’ No. 3 receiver, again?
After making the wild-card round, the Buccaneers made sure to retain important free agents and make compelling upgrades at multiple positions. And the team’s first-round pick creates a fascinating wide receiver room.
Tampa Bay brought back star Chris Godwin on a three-year, $66 million deal, but then also drafted Emeka Egbuka at 19th overall. On top of that, Mike Evans remains one of the league’s best receivers, and former third-round pick Jalen McMillan came onto the scene in the final five games of the year. Perhaps Godwin may not be ready for the start of 2025 following ankle surgery, but if he’s ready to go, then Tampa Bay won’t have an easy call for whom to put next to him and Evans.
First, and probably most important, is who will be active on gameday?
Given a chance to offer reassuring words Tuesday, Bucs coach Todd Bowles had no updates on Chris Godwin’s rehab. Joe cannot pencil Godwin in as a Week 1 player until hearing otherwise.
(For those who think Joe is making too big of a deal about no firm updates on Godwin, consider the Bucs have gone on record saying rookie corner Benjamin Morrison is expected to be full-go by the beginning of training camp and that SirVocea Dennis is just fine as he is currently practicing. Those two guys also had recent surgeries. But with Godwin coming off ankle surgery? Shoulder shrugs from the Bucs. You do the math.)
Second, what’s the gameplan? Third, what package are the Bucs using at any given time in the game?
Bucs offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard recently said all receivers have different skillsets. So, depending how the Bucs may want to attack will determine the No. 3 receiver — and Grizzard didn’t rule out using four-receiver sets.
So the No. 3 receiver could change through each offensive possession.
Who is the Bucs’ No. 3 receiver? TBD.
#BUCS 1ST ROUND RECEIVER EMEKA EGBUKA HAS INSANELY GOOD FOOTWORK.
DAMN 🥶🥶🥶
pic.twitter.com/FyKnbQOvHs— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) May 28, 2025
May 29th, 2025 at 12:13 am
It is the same song and dance we got after Godwin tore his ACL/MCL et al. There was no concrete timeline given and if memory serves me correct you threw a hissy-fit then as well and the first offensive play of the season was a quick pass to Godwin.
May 29th, 2025 at 12:13 am
Chris Godwin will be lucky if he is WR4.
May 29th, 2025 at 12:14 am
Egbuka is WR3. You don’t spend a #1 on a guy to be WR4. McMillan is very good, but he’s not Egbuka.
May 29th, 2025 at 12:17 am
(Paris Warren Reminder)
Jason Licht is too smart to not include performance clauses in Chris Godwin’s contract. If he isn’t a starter, he won’t get all that money (outside of the guaranteed money)
May 29th, 2025 at 12:18 am
We know who it isn’t. Trey Darden Palmer, Kam kennybell Johnson, Rakim Darden Jarrett. None of these smurfs can play real football. Soon added to this list is likely the dwarf drafted in the 7th round.
Drafting Egbuka was genius.
May 29th, 2025 at 12:19 am
I think Egbuka and McMillan are the futures WR1 and WR2 (not this year).
I also think McMillan is better than Godwin, and will be even more improved this year.
May 29th, 2025 at 12:24 am
The nature of Godwin’s injury is more severe than the other 2 guys. No fancy math required.
May 29th, 2025 at 12:24 am
@joe.
Was there no underwear football on Wednesday? Was Jones’n for your daily update.
May 29th, 2025 at 12:26 am
There may have been but there was no media availability. Next media availability for underwear football practice is next week. And yes, there will be practice notes. 🙂
May 29th, 2025 at 12:27 am
Bring Godwin back slowly. Evans and EE 1 and 2, JM 3, and if Godwin comes back strong say week 4? We have a 1, 2 EE, 2 CG, 3 JM. A nice problem to try to figure out. Knowing them, they dont care. Whatever it takes to get the W 🙂
May 29th, 2025 at 12:28 am
Yes.
May 29th, 2025 at 12:40 am
Tez Johnson has a video on the NFL YouTube channel painting the battle flag. I really hope he makes the team because he’s hilarious.
May 29th, 2025 at 1:03 am
Let Godwin rest and rehab for as long as humanly possible. If Evans-Ebuka-McMillan can’t win us games than we have bigger issues to worry about.
May 29th, 2025 at 2:48 am
Dang Joe I thought this was a legit headline and I was gonna be privy to some of Joe’s insder stuff here. LOL
Go Bucs!
May 29th, 2025 at 4:31 am
Buka’s footwork in the video is awesome! Looking to the future with McMillan too.
Been hoping the Bucs don’t want to give any clues and private info out yet about Godwin. Crossing fingers that he is fully back before the Eagles game. Still upset about how he got hurt.
Agree with MadMax too, if needed bring Chris back slowly.
May 29th, 2025 at 5:55 am
Joe … ‘Who is the Bucs’ No. 3 receiver? TBD. More specifically, who is the Bucs’ No. 3 receiver? The answer is yes.’
Interesting question Joe, because like others have said before … ‘There’s only 1 football’. Baker threw 570 times in 2024 and 566 times in 2023. That’s quite consistent, and a decent guess would be that he’ll throw 570 times again this season. How he distributes those passes is what’s in question.
Bucs have a great RB room that can not only run the ball, but also catch the ball. They’ll get their share of targets. Last year White & Irving got 109 targets & made 98 catches for 785 yards together. Guess is that they’ll get at least 100 targets together this year.
We also have a decent TE room. Cade Otton lives on the field (missed 3 games last season, but when he’s in the lineup he’s in on about 95% of the offensive plays). He was the #2 receiver last year in terms of total yards (600), gaining that on 87 targets with 59 catches. Guess is that he’ll see at least 80 targets this year.
Mike Evans WILL get his 1000 yards receiving; the Bucs will see to it. Last year he was used somewhat differently than in years past, probably because of Godwin’s injury (and Mike was hurting too for much of the season). He was targeted 110 times with 74 catches (his 67.3% catch percentage was much higher than his 58.4% career average). It’ll probably take at least the same 110 targets for Mike to get 1000 yards, and maybe closer to 120 targets (my guess is 120).
Chris Godwin missed half the season last year & may miss part of this one. But IF he’s in the lineup for the whole season (14 games average in his case), he’ll probably get his 1000 yards also. Chris got over 1000 yards in 2021, 2022 & 2023, averaging 133 targets per year. Guess is that he’ll get about 130 targets this year IF healthy.
Using those guesses, that totals out to 430 targets for just those 5 (White, Irving, Otton, Evans & Godwin) out of 570 potential passes by Baker. Hmmm, leaves only 140 for the rest of our RBs, TEs & WRs … Tucker, Durham, Culp, McMillan, Egbuka, Shepherd, plus probably 2 more WRs. Last year that ‘rest of the crowd’ had a total of 195 targets for reference (largely because Godwin only got 62 targets). Grizz & Baker have an interesting distribution problem.
May 29th, 2025 at 6:01 am
McMillan did blow up and show what he could do last season, very talented but until he can prove reliable and not miss a bunch of games I’m not sold on him. I’m just being honest. If JMac goes this whole season without getting hurt and missing games I’m in on him but until then I’m skeptical. I also think Trey Palmer has talent but if he doesn’t show it he’s gone. I was very disappointed in Palmer last season. The man has the quickest get off in the NFL, what a waste.
May 29th, 2025 at 6:08 am
BTW, when having discussions about Bucs’ future #1 & #2 receivers, one guy to watch is Devin Culp. Vastly underrated IMO. Last year he was targeted 6 times; caught 5 for 88 yards. That’s 17.6 YPC average, highest on the team by far. Even higher than Mike Evans career average of 15.2 YPC (an astounding number BTW).
Culp (6’4″ & 237 lbs) is almost the same size as Evans (6’5″ & 231 lbs), and Devin is apparently even faster in the 40 (4.47 secs) than Mike (4.53 secs). He’s someone Bucs’ fans need to keep their eye on.
May 29th, 2025 at 6:32 am
The great thing about Otten is that you can utilize 11 personnel traditionally or really as 4 WRs since he can line up in the slot.
What a match up nightmare it will be for opposing dcs when we trot out 11 that looks like a run play pre snap with Irving in the backfield only to check to otten moving to the slot.
Hell, with Irving or white you could even check to 5 guys lined up wide out of that set.
May 29th, 2025 at 7:00 am
Evans seems to come off the field every other passing play, so whoever is #3 or #4 is going to take his place multiple times per drive. I’m hoping they are right and Egbuka can play multiple WR positions. If that’s the case, he may be on the field as much as any receiver, substituting for whoever needs a breather at any given time.
May 29th, 2025 at 7:17 am
Defense Rules, forcing me to think about what is obviously a conundrum brewing. Maybe we get an inordinate amount of snaps this year? I’m concerned that we won’t take enough plays on scoring drives. We’ll run the ball twice and throw it three times and score. It’ll get boring unless we just keep running out replacements for variety. Maybe we can instruct our receivers to quit going crazy with yards after catch? And maybe Baker can start throwing passes that are a little trickier to catch? Yep, this is gonna be a problem. This is the kind of problem I would like to be in charge of solving!
May 29th, 2025 at 7:34 am
JMac is a finesse receiver not a get dirty near the line of scrimmage blocker, EE is better suited for #2 and J mac #3
May 29th, 2025 at 8:12 am
I deff agree with several of those who have said not to rush CG14 back. If we didn’t have McMillan or EE then might stance would prob be diff but that’s not the case here. EE will get some really good playing time while easing CG14 back in slowly. That will help EE development into the pros a lot better. Also he shouldn’t have any pressure to produce cause we have a good amount of other weapons to between j-mac , Otton, Bucky , white and Tucker. Bring CG14 back with enough time to be firing on all cylinders when we are making a push on that last stretch for the playoffs
May 29th, 2025 at 8:18 am
defense rules makes great pt about culp. i was hoping during the draft the bucs traded down with giants to get 2 more picks – hoping they’d draft tory horton. eventually you need an evans clone on the outside. at 6’4 maybe culp is the answer. as good as egbuka may be, a slot rcvr in 1st round surprised me.
May 29th, 2025 at 8:30 am
Kenton … Conundrum? Nah, just a good ‘problem’ to have. Baker has ONE job: win. If he does that, no one’s gonna say ‘But you didn’t get it to Chris enough. Or to Mike enough. Or You forgot all about our new rookie receiver’.
And can’t picture Baker telling Mike ‘OK, after you catch the ball this time, forget about YAC; just run sideways until someone tackles you. We want to keep the ball longer’. Nope, not gonna happen.
May 29th, 2025 at 8:36 am
We should be worrying about the defense more than the WR room.
That is by far the weak link on this team.
From what has been reported we’re basically going with the same squad as last year.
With a few new prospects as backups and a DE that is so far MIA.
The HC/DC is on thin ice already.
May 29th, 2025 at 9:09 am
Agree about Culp looking like a stud in his limited opportunities last year. All he did was make plays in crunch time, and won the contested catch battle. For sure he is one to watch and hopefully earns more playing time.
May 29th, 2025 at 9:44 am
Sure is a nice problem to have.
May 29th, 2025 at 9:45 am
Defense Rules Says:
May 29th, 2025 at 6:08 am
Culp is a TE. There has been no indication they plan on converting him to a WR, or that he even has the skillset. Running 4.47 in a straight line at the combine is not at all an indication that the guy has the skills to play WR. He could be a real weapon from the TE position though, and maybe he’d split wide in certain packages, but anything beyond that… NO. This idea isn’t even on planet earth.
May 29th, 2025 at 9:48 am
PresidentBowles Says:
May 29th, 2025 at 8:36 am
That’s not really accurate at all. But congrats on inventing reasons to continue the Bowles hate.
May 29th, 2025 at 9:54 am
NLK@boston Says:
May 29th, 2025 at 8:18 am
No, he doesn’t. He projected a straight line 40 time and a few nice plays (by a TE, not a WR) into a fantasy that he could magically become a replacement for Mike Evans. Really?
I’m excited about Culp as a developing weapon from the TE position, but saying he could be a replacement for one of our starting WRs is quite a stretch.
May 29th, 2025 at 10:08 am
Surprised if CG14 can stay on the field the whole season. My guess is that if EE does well, CG14 slides on the depth chart or gets cut next season. I am not worried about CG one way or another since the Bucs have so much depth at WR.
Worries should be about a thin defense with poor second and third string players.
May 29th, 2025 at 10:44 am
Don’t be shocked if Godwin starts the season on the IR…..I think they are more worried with him being available come playoff time. I could see him sitting out the first four weeks of the regular season.
May 29th, 2025 at 11:03 am
They should rotate all four evenly. Two are getting older and two are coming on, hopefully. Playing them all equally will extend the two old guys’ careers and allow the youngsters to develop.
May 29th, 2025 at 11:52 am
Bobby M. Says:
Don’t be shocked if Godwin starts the season on the IR…..I think they are more worried with him being available come playoff time.
^^^^^^^^
Agreed 1000%. You draft Egbuka so CG can get fully healthy. Without CG, the Bucs have 3 solid WR + TEs + RBs. Lots of weapons. Play the long game.
May 29th, 2025 at 1:01 pm
@Defense Rules Says:
May 29th, 2025 at 6:08 am
BTW, when having discussions about Bucs’ future #1 & #2 receivers, one guy to
watch is Devin Culp.
@mj Says:
May 29th, 2025 at 7:34 am
JMac is a finesse receiver not a get dirty near the line of scrimmage blocker, EE
is better suited for #2 and J mac #3
FAMU_RATTLER SAYS:
I agree with the MJ and Defense Rule. Devin Culp is going to be a difference maker. A few more targets in his direction will pay dividends. Also, the bucs will be a running team this year. That way they will not give the ball back to the other teams offense. Limiting their number of opportunities for scoring. HOPEFULLY, our defense will be up to the task of stopping and limiting the other teams TOP and SCORING. Devin, Bucky, Tucker, White, J Mac, Otten, Evans, Godwin, Egbuka will score, hopefully not to fast but very often. Go Bucs Go.
May 29th, 2025 at 1:30 pm
Bonzai is high as a kite..
May 29th, 2025 at 2:17 pm
hey filthy animal, no one is saying he’s evans 2.0. just stating a fact about evans replacement, whether 1,2,3 yrs down the road. just saying same body type & size, equivalent speed, and knowledge of the offense. a 6 ft slot rcv. can’t replace a 6’4 wideout, especially on sideline throws or in the rezone against 6 ft cb or safety. it was just a thought in case evans is out for few games.
May 29th, 2025 at 2:52 pm
JMac has proven he is. They drafted Egbuka because odds are Godwin is not ready in the first month and injuries will happen to others.
May 29th, 2025 at 3:08 pm
I trust Baker to play well regardless of who is 2-3-4 WR
We drafted a WR in round 1 bc Chris won’t be ready. And we have no idea how he’ll look once he returns from another devastating injury. I know he is a good dude but that was a horrible signing. We could’ve used the money to get an actual edge rusher not dumpster diving.
The best GM did not do “best GM” things on this one. You need a pass rush in this league.
May 29th, 2025 at 4:00 pm
NLK@boston Says:
May 29th, 2025 at 2:17 pm
So, he’s a TE. Do we know how he would do face up to a CB? No. Sure, he’s athletic, and put up a good 40 time at the combine. That doesn’t mean he’s a guy you want to put out there as a WR. It’s a different skillset running receiver routes against CBs vs. running inside routes against LBs or safeties. If he had WR skills, why was he not a WR in college?… As for the size comparison with Evans, I don’t think Evans plays at 230ish. That may have been his size entering the league, but he has said he plays at about 220 these days. Culp is at 240-245 to have bulk for blocking.
Nothing against Culp, but he’s not a WR until he shows he can beat coverage against CBs. He’s a good developmental TE and potential weapon in the passing game.
May 29th, 2025 at 6:32 pm
Bucs4ever, I have to grudgingly admit that the Godwin signing might have been rash. On the other hand, why did the Patriots offer him $20 million more than we offered? Assuming their offer was for 3 years too (is is) that’s getting razor close to $30 million a year. I see the Pats were going to guarantee $45 mil. We guaranteed $44 mil. They obviously both think CG will return sometimes this year.
I also think Culp could lose a few pounds and be a fine receiver if he can’t gain a few to stay at TE.
May 29th, 2025 at 9:16 pm
Okay, I’m going to put this out here as my “wild” idea that I think may be entirely possible. Just like Ryan Miller converted from a college tight end to a wide receiver in the pros (and did a heck of a job for the Bucs in limited playing time), I think it makes absolute sense to try to convert Devin Culp to a wide receiver.
I would have Culp mirroring and soaking up every possible thing he can glean from Mike Evans. They are roughly the same size and speed (Culp is actually slightly faster than Evans). The Mike Evans replacement may already be on the Bucs roster if he can only learn the Mike Evans mindset, moves and route running genius.
May 29th, 2025 at 9:30 pm
Oh Jeez Uss Ayche Kreist… people fall in love with straight line speed and assume he can play WR. Apparently nobody gets that it’s a super dumb assumption. Has it happened before? Sure.
Leave the fantasy position changes to the coaching staff.
May 29th, 2025 at 9:33 pm
So tired of hearing that the Bucs drafted Egbuka as an insurance policy. THAT ABSOLUTLEY DID NOT HAPPEN. Egbuka was drafted because he should have been taken WAAAAAAY before he fell tot he Bucs in the draft and the Bucs would have been crazy not to take him at the time. There was nothing available on defense that even approached the value the Egbuka has long term for the team.
Whether he is available week #1 or not, Godwin is one of the best receivers in the league (just ask the Patriots). It’s ludicrous for anyone to suggest he will not be tearing it up on the field the moment he is healthy. Godwin was the best receiver on the team last year before his unfortunate injury and will be again.
Egbuka is the future and also a “switchblade” receiver that the Bucs hope to plug in for the X, Y or Z whenever players need a breather or there is an injury. He’s ALSO the future as a starter but that is nowhere close to this year (unless he replaces McMillan).
May 29th, 2025 at 9:35 pm
patriots have been trash since Brady left lol
May 29th, 2025 at 9:57 pm
Scotty Mack Says:
May 29th, 2025 at 9:33 pm
I don’t think people are doubting that. The question is about whether the ankle will be healthy, healed and fully rehabbed. Sometimes severe injuries don’t ever get back to 100% or even 90%. That’s the only limitation. Will he be able to get the ankle back to where he can run and cut effectively?
May 29th, 2025 at 10:02 pm
@FilthyAnimal – You gotta think the tams know more than we do, considering the massive money that was thrown at him.
May 29th, 2025 at 10:08 pm
Also, Godwin was never known for his superior cutting ability or speed. He’s always be known for his uncanny ability at figuring out how to using a defender’s leverage to get himself open, his ridiculously great hands (dude practically never drops those bullets that Baker fires) and his ability to break tackles. Only the third of those three things might be limited during his latest comeback.
May 30th, 2025 at 1:50 am
Assuming Godwin is back by week 1, EgBuka is Wr 3. We spent a 1st rounder on him he better be in there right away 💯