Brian Baldinger Sold On Emeka Egbuka
August 18th, 2025
Glimpse of the future.
Joe is both scared and totally stoked about Emeka Egbuka’s rookie season.
Stoked in that Joe thinks this guy is absolutely the real deal. Stoked because Joe thinks Egbuka may be a Bucs star for quite a few years.
So why is Joe scared? With the injury to Jalen McMillan on Saturday in Pittsburgh and the continued shroud of mystery concerning Chris Godwin, if Mike Evans’ tradition of summertime hamstring string injuries continues, the Bucs will have a rookie No. 1 receiver.
That’s not ideal.
But still, all it took was one tremendous touchdown catch Saturday night for NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger to jump on the Egbuka bandwagon. He raved about the concentration Egbuka displayed on his route, which ended in six points.
Baldinger also noted there was good defense on Egbuka but he found a way to get in position to make a superb catch — of a superb throw from Teddy Bridgewater.
You can see the video below.
.@Buccaneers @EmekaEgbuka with concentration and patience v tight coverage. the Bucs WR room is as good as anybody's #BaldysBreakdowns pic.twitter.com/hgts8Y9lLf
— Brian Baldinger (@BaldyNFL) August 17, 2025
August 18th, 2025 at 12:10 am
Today on NFL Network when a trade for Trey was discussed as a possibility Baldy mentioned the Bucs first.
August 18th, 2025 at 12:39 am
Not happening!
August 18th, 2025 at 2:56 am
Something is only worth what another is willing to pay. Or, in better times, TWO others are willing to pay, so you can have an auction.
We go wrong by assuming that everyone wants Trey. Not true. Clearly the Bengals don’t, at least not enough to pay him. (That tells us that he has oversold himself, but that’s another story). And a bunch of teams want him in the wishful thinking way, and so aren’t serious suitors. The remaining five or six destinations all have cap management to think about and likely don’t care to do a one season rental, unless it’s really on the cheap. So unless two teams really push their cards all in, it’s really a buyer’s market.
So what is Trey’s value in this market, as opposed to an estimate of what he ought to be worth? At the end of the season he will leave the Bengals and they’ll get a compensatory pick. End of the third round, so about #98. Two years from now. So that’s the baseline of what trading partner teams have to beat. Seen in that light it’s reasonable to expect a trade for a ‘26 second round, or maybe just maybe one late first round pick. There is some value ito Cincinnati to have his services this year, so that raises the floor somewhat. But unless two teams get into a bidding war the estimate of the practical value of this trade are being way overstated.
August 18th, 2025 at 5:16 am
Bucs should be willing to give up a second round pick. Licht’s track record drafting in the second round is horrible, it would be little value to us.
August 18th, 2025 at 7:22 am
Dude will be 31 in December
August 18th, 2025 at 8:02 am
Maaan, if anyone has some of those “great” photographs from that angle, let’s see ‘em!!
August 18th, 2025 at 9:03 am
Talk about a scary trio: Egbuka, and a healthy Big Mike and Ungodly Godwin. Grizzard and Feisty Bake would go nuts. Plus White and Bucky and Otton can all catch, too. Works for me.
August 18th, 2025 at 9:34 am
Not sure why you want to continue to try and curse Mike with a hamstring . Let’s let it play out . We have plenty of depth at receiver . The room that should be on notice is out tight end room. Every drop Cade has is becoming more and more a trend . Culp could take over TE 1 but his drop didn’t help .
August 18th, 2025 at 10:48 am
Hodad Says:
“Licht’s track record drafting in the second round is horrible”
Define horrible….
2nd round NFL draft picks generally have a 55-60% bust rate – closer to 50% top of the round and closer to 60% bottom of 2nd rd.
Meaning 40-45% of the time – 2nd round picks become good or at least serviceable NFL players.
Licht has ‘hit’ on over 60% of all the 2nd round picks he has ever made – including some real gems….. Marpet – Davis – Winfield – Goedeke – Mauch
Noah Spence and Justin Evans were talented players who suffered injuries that ended their careers – thats not on Licht…. I didn’t like the MJ Stewart pick – but he’s still in the league after 8 years…. SMB helped us win a Super Bowl – and is still a starter in the league coming into year 7… Ronald Jones absolutely helped us win a Super Bowl – ran for 990 yards in 2020… Trask has been here 5 years and signed a 2nd contract…. Hall is a serviceable 5-tech DT and an upgrade over Gholston as a pass rusher… Jury is still out on Braswell coming into year 2 but the arrow is pointing up…. Morrison will be a starter at CB sooner than later…
Licht has really only made TWO “horrible” 2nd round selections out of 17 total…
Those would be Sefarian-Jenkins in 2014 and Aguayo in 2016 – 11 and 9 drafts ago….
Just sayin….
Opinions may vary….
August 18th, 2025 at 9:03 pm
Hendrickson trade would be out of this world! We can talk about depth all we want, we don’t have a legit rusher aside from Reddick who also is older and had a not so great season last year. Hendrickson would transform this defense. But….Joe is right, it’s not JLs style to trade a high pick and with Evans and some bigger contracts due next season and beyond like Baker, Goedeke, McCollum, Kancey itll be tough to shelll out the money for him.