Chris Simms Still Bullish On Emeka Egbuka
May 8th, 2026
Former Bucs QB reacts.
The Joe typing this here post has way too many questions about the 2026 Bucs in early May to feel comfortable about the team returning to the playoffs.
Except for the offensive line, there are questions up and down the roster for “this Joe.” One is, “What hell happened to Emeka Egbuka after the bye last year?”
Lots of folks, rightly, focus on Baker Mayfield’s second-half swoon. You could argue that Pearl Harbored the team’s chances of getting back to the playoffs.
But Mayfield was hardly the only guy who had a rough second half.
Egbuka vanished in the second half. In the first half, he had the “Offensive Rookie of the Year” award virtually locked up.
Speaking on PFT Live, seen weekday mornings on NBC Sports Network and co-hosted by the creator, curator and overall guru of Pro Football Talk, the great Mike Florio, former Bucs quarterback Chris Simms doesn’t think Egbuka’s disappearing act was all on his shoulders.
Simms believes several factors contributing to Egbuka becoming the focus of an Amber Alert. And the first reason was something Joe hadn’t considered.
“I think it was a little of everything, too,” Simms said. “I mean, I think that question is there around the NFL and even for me personally. Like, ‘Hey, he’s real good, but man, he fell off at the end of the year.’
“Let’s see what happens here. Now, I do think maybe some of the falling off was you got some other receivers back healthy.”
That was a helluva point by Simms. And that’s about the time that Egbuka went into hiding. Mike Evans came back from his injuries. Chris Godwin was finally back to full strength. Bucky Irving came back.
Suddenly, Egbuka, who became a top dog out of necessity, was overshadowed.
And the way the entire team fell off the map after the bye, Joe can understand how maybe, just maybe, Mayfield was leaning more on Evans and Godwin because they are both established veterans known for above-the-rim play in pressure-packed games.
Joe’s not saying Mayfield gave up on Egbuka, just that subconsciously, it’s hard to get out of old habits especially when they were so successful.
Simms added he expects Egbuka to bounce back in September. Simms said — while being clear he was not comparing Egbuka to his old Ohio State teammate Jaxon Smith-Njigba — sEgbuka has a lot of qualities similar to Smith-Njigba.
May 8th, 2026 at 7:06 am
Kinda lost me from the get go with anything Chris ” I wish I was as good as my Dad was” Simms being referenced as saying ANYTHING.
May 8th, 2026 at 7:06 am
EE will be fine. More consistent targets now that ME13 is gone. I suspect JMac will have a huge year as he looked great at the end of last season.
May 8th, 2026 at 7:07 am
There was no way he was going to keep that early production up with Evans and Godwin back in the lineup. Add in that the whole friggin’ team disappeared the last 8 games, he was doomed. He’ll be the number 1 this year. We still have a better WR room than most of the NFL even without Evans. The kid is a worker and he means business.
May 8th, 2026 at 7:09 am
That’s part of it but the biggest part is no time for pass plays longer than 5 yards with the guards we had. Made it impossible to get the ball deep enough to hit Egbuka before the pressure was in Mayfield’s face.
May 8th, 2026 at 7:14 am
It’s really tough to find things to write about this time of the year.
May 8th, 2026 at 7:39 am
Lots of receivers to feed so it’s up to Zac with the play design, and up to Baker on who to target. The same applies to the RBs and TEs getting targets as they’re usually lower priority than the receivers. I don’t think the Bucs will have one receiver getting a huge number of catches, the ball will be spread around a lot.
I like the Bill Walsh style West Coast offense that Coen ran with the short, high-percentage passing game. Grizzard got away from it and Bake served up too many picks and incompletions. I know ‘deep-incompletion Joe’ wanted the long ball, but I hope Zac’s offense is more like Coen’s than Grizz’s.
May 8th, 2026 at 8:00 am
Emeka Egbuka did not suddenly forget how to play football. After that Seattle game, other teams began to roll more coverage to his side, Baker was hurt, more established receivers got healthy and I do recall a post where Egbuka said his legs got heavy; Read “rookie wall”. He’ll be fine, especially without Baker forcing the ball to Evans.
May 8th, 2026 at 8:01 am
EE. Solid
May 8th, 2026 at 8:02 am
Baker played like garbage after the bye so how could his receivers thrive when he was throwing balls in the dirt and in the stands? Is that so hard to figure out, Joe?
May 8th, 2026 at 8:09 am
Except for the offensive line, there are questions up and down the roster….
Going into the last 4 games, Bucs were 7-6. They lost 3 of last 4.
What happened?
Mayfield threw 6 TD’s and 6 Interceptions and was sacked 12 times in those 4 games.
Evans caught 16 for 228 yds and 2 TD’s
Godwin caught 17 for 166 yds and 1 TD.
Either Mayfield sucked or the OLine sucked or the Offensive Coordinator sucked.- or a combo of the 3. –
The OLine has questions as well and assuming knee injuries to starting Guards are all good is “hope”
May 8th, 2026 at 8:25 am
ATLBuc. “Is that so hard to figure out, Joe? You’re right about the late slide being hard to figure out, ATLBuc. What isn’t in the least bit difficult to figure out, though, is that you don’t know your butt from a hole in the ground.
May 8th, 2026 at 8:37 am
He’ll be back.
May 8th, 2026 at 8:37 am
EE had a deep playoff run in college, was a first rounder with lots of expectations, came out on fire and then the 2nd half happened.
Combination of rookie “wall”, others like Evans, Godwin and JMac coming back..an OC who wasn’t great, a injured QB and oline.
EE is too talented and too much of a dedicated hard worker to not succeed.
EE will be just fine.
May 8th, 2026 at 8:57 am
Surprised nobody mentioned the offensive coordinator. He may have graduated from Yale, but his education as an offensive coordinator was zip, zero. The play calling was awful and the running game went from the pent house to the outhouse.
May 8th, 2026 at 8:58 am
Teams game planning for EE and the OC were two huge factors. Although EE had a few he’d like back, he has shown the ability to get open. I believe Godwin is a key factor, if he returns to his pre injury form it’ll definitely take some attention away from EE. Not to mention Jmac is back and healthy, then add in the other young receivers and a “seasoned” play caller, all of those factors bode well for EE.
May 8th, 2026 at 9:07 am
Emeka Egbuka would have 1200 receiving yards
If Mayfield could get the ball to him
There were too many misfires from Baker
He can’t pass the ball to himself
May 8th, 2026 at 9:43 am
If Z-Rob can find away to put together a pass game with concepts that favor beating the uptick in bracketed coverage EE & J-Mac are likely to see we, should be good place to start
Can’t have 7 games completing <60% of passes
Can't have 9 games in which we can't even gain 200 yards through the air.
A lot of external factors outside of EEs control with target share being one, but overall he led our team with 127 Targets in 17 games which is 46 more targets than the 2nd most targeted player being Cade Otton w/81 targets.
127 targets
63 catches
9 drops
34 first downs
(leaves 55 targets not caught or dropped which is about 3 empty targets a game)
Mike & Chris combined had:
113 targets
63 catches
3 drops
44 first downs
If you added J-Macs' contributions:
128 targets
75 targets
4 drops
52 first downs
More stability in the passing game via consistency from the pocket would be the best foot forward for EE and anybody eligble to catch the football out of whatever personnel package being used.
An aside, but partly related. White-Tucker-Irving had a combined 91(16% of our total targets) targets, the average depth one of those passes was -2.2 yard or a total of -208 total yard before catch. IF Robinson does plan to be "more vertical", I hope it means getting our RBs beyond the LOS and in space moving forward on their route concepts instead of just spamming screens and dumpoffs/long handoffs.
Force defenses to defend space and the players, instead of just having them triggering downhill on the short throws at/behind the LOS.
May 8th, 2026 at 9:48 am
Absolutely, also don’t forget for rookies they have so much going on from pro days , combine , draft , visits to team facilities , mini camps these guys don’t get out thru the ringer coming into the NFL. This will be his first offseason where he got to get some rest and he got a ton of experience from last season. I bet he comes out on fire this season
May 8th, 2026 at 10:09 am
Its gonna be a heavy dose of Gainwell. and the rushing attack,that in turn leads to open receivers Its not brain surgery!…Chris Simms …lol
May 8th, 2026 at 10:14 am
How can you not be looking forward to this Buccaneers team ,My son is a die hard Ravens fan and a football fanatical every level and hes noticed the changes in Tampa and loves it Especially the Gainwell pick up….
May 8th, 2026 at 10:36 am
WBL. JMac had a Michael larger contribution than one would have thought. I don’t believe he played enough games to get that many targets, did he?
May 8th, 2026 at 10:37 am
Michael should be much.
May 8th, 2026 at 10:43 am
To all the Bowles haters..If the players wanted him gone this off season he’d be gone.Sorry bout your luck Its another season with him! Go Bucs!
May 8th, 2026 at 11:35 am
Baker sucked. Simple as that!
May 8th, 2026 at 11:37 am
“JMac had a Michael larger contribution than one would have thought.”
Wouldn’t say that, but I would say J-Mac upon returning was as reliable as most projected him to be coming into year 2 before the injury, and even better considering all this is after coming back from injury.
In the 4 games(week 15-18) J-Mac played:
15 targets
12 receptions
1 drop
178 yards
8 first downs
This is actually pretty good for 4 games. If you were to project the averages from that 4-game stretch over a 17 game season it would look like:
About 63-64 targets
51 catches
756 yards
34-1st downs(sounds crazy, but the avg per catch would be 14.8 yds)
and about 4 drops
Again, not only is this not bad, that’s doable for J-mac in ’26 w/some TDs in there.
Mike in the 8 games(wk 1-3,7,15-18) he played:
62 targets
30 receptions
2 drops
368 yards
23 first downs
3 TDs
Chris Godwin in 9 games(wk 4, 5, 12-18):
51 targets
33 receptions
1 drop
21 first downs
2 TDs
In the last 4 games Evans played, he was clearly the most targeted WR with 12, 9, 7 & 2 for 30 of his 62 total targets for 228 yards & 2 TDs. The final 3 games of the season, he caught 10 of 18 targeted passes for just 96 yards.
Egbuka in that same 4 game spane span, had 17 targets, hauled in 9 catches for 132 yards 0 scores.
By comparison the first 3 Games Mike & EE suited up the split in targets was;
28 for Evans(14 catches)
21 for Egbuka(14 catches)
Not including the Detroit game which would make for all 8 games Mike & EE shared the field, partly because Mike getting hurt in that game had a big influence on Cade & EE seeing a spike in targets, especially for Cade.
At that point of the season it was Egbukas’ 2nd game seeing double digit targets and of the 3 games he had >10 targets. The 3rd and final game EE saw > 10 targets was 3 weeks later vs. The Pats when he caught 6 of 13 targets.
It wasn’t as Evans leaning as some are making it sound, and EE played twice as many games as Mike which is kind of reflected in his target spikes. What we have to replace or the gap we’ll have to bridge, is that 76% of the 30 passes Mike caught went for 1st downs. While only 58% of the 63 passes EE caught went for first downs.
EE can improve in that department, but I think between J-Mac, CG & w/e we can get from Hurst will help bridge some of the better things we did with Mike in the lineup i.e moving the damn chains. We’ll get a better of idea of how & whom, the further we get into the summer.
Math could be off, I’m on a second story veranda in Montego Bay. Suns out, and I think this coffee has rum in it.
May 8th, 2026 at 12:15 pm
Very similar player to JSN so yeah we should all still be bullish on him.
If he has the same type of work ethic he could make a big jump in year two.
May 8th, 2026 at 12:25 pm
I’m just hoping and praying for a relatively healthy Bucs roster this year. If we can avoid any real injuries to the starters, I think we’ll have a good and excitingly good season.
May 8th, 2026 at 12:39 pm
The Bucs OC Grazard was new and inexperienced. Even a Moran could see what was going on in Tampa. It was a poor decision by management and Bowles that backfired. Injuries were a factor, but the poor decision was the final blow.
Amazing that everyone involved showed poor judgement.Instead of reacting lets really think it through. Amazing how these decision makers are earning large incomes. Stop reacting and use what’s between your ears.
May 8th, 2026 at 1:28 pm
Might be nothing happened to Egbuka. Might be all on Mayfield.
May 8th, 2026 at 1:35 pm
We have a trio of young receivers with at least one year of experience. I expect a great deal of improvement by them, especially with Tez Johnson who apparently had the most to learn as an NFL WR. I feel very good about these guys and am thinking by the end of the season WR will be, in some conversations, considered one of the strongest position groups on the team.
May 8th, 2026 at 1:37 pm
Buc Fan in Phoenix Says:
May 8th, 2026 at 7:06 am
Kinda lost me from the get go with anything Chris ” I wish I was as good as my Dad was” Simms being referenced as saying ANYTHING.
Dude, please stay in Phoenix. Chris had plenty of talent. Maybe not as good as his dad but he gave his spleen for the Bucs. The man lost 9 pints of blood and almost died.
May 8th, 2026 at 1:58 pm
I think JMac had a lot to do with it….
EE has to get tougher and more physical at the top of his routes…he had a few costly drops too
with that said, he should be a lot better and more consistent
GO BUCS
May 8th, 2026 at 2:07 pm
So Emeka the first WR ever to fall off thru his rookie season, it’s called doing what no coach on this team knows how to do ….ADJUST the adjusted to Emeka knew the other talent ain’t hitting on ish or the QB so they doubled tripled him. Why Joe acts dumb in these moments ion know and mind yall he’s closer than any of us. Off-season ain’t much to write about huh
May 8th, 2026 at 2:16 pm
“ADJUST the adjusted to Emeka knew the other talent ain’t hitting on ish or the QB so they doubled tripled him.”
There were some “adjustments” same as there have been the last few year, Sheppard was used more, Tez got involved, but here’s what pissed me off going through all these numbers.
Like him or not, anybody who’s followed this team as far back as say ’22 when we drafted Rachaad, knows how useful he was in the pass game. With all the injuries and rotating because of the injuries, last year was statistically Rachaads worst year as a receiving target when it comes to intentional attention which affected his production.
Here’s the nailer, Rachaad caught 40 of 45 targets in 17 games, but his best receiving performance was @SEA for a paltry 4 targets, 4 receptions and 40 yards. 6 receiving TDs in ’24 down to 0 in ’25. Not saying I’m still made he left, but man I could see this is being part of the reason. Kind of factors into the whole “hot hand” bs.
May 8th, 2026 at 2:53 pm
After he faded and failed with “tired legs” in 2025, now he’s running his pie hole about all kinds of pretend nonsense.
Michael Clayton Jr.
May 8th, 2026 at 3:14 pm
I’d like to see us scheming lots of short/intermediate passes (again) with a few deep balls when the opportunity arises.
Imo we need to emphasize spreading the ball around to get everybody involved early when possible. and Baker needs to not stare down his 1st read and move thru his progression instead of forcing throws to #1.
Just move the chains.
Zac will have a birds eye view of the last 3 seasons and should have some clarity on which approaches could, or will work for our QB and other personnel.
We have the weapons – hoping Zac can/will utilize them (much) better than what we saw last year. Or the 2 previous with Canales and Coen.
May 8th, 2026 at 4:28 pm
Joe’s not saying Mayfield gave up on Egbuka, just that subconsciously, it’s hard to get out of old habits especially when they were so successful.
————-
The issue was Baker couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn after week 6.
How many times did we see a wide open e2 for a TD only to have Baker miss him by a mile.
Or, like at the end of the Falcons game, e2 is wide open for a 1st down that ends the game, and Baker can’t get the ball in the same zip code.
Baker was 100% the issue with the team after week 6. If he’s better, the entire team will be better.
May 8th, 2026 at 4:44 pm
Man Warren Brook, you sure have alot of free time on your hands. Perhaps a job or a girl may help
May 9th, 2026 at 7:59 am
“Man Warren Brook, you sure have alot of free time on your hands. Perhaps a job or a girl may help”
I’m on vacation in Montego Bay, I invited your lady but she told me she couldn’t trust you at home with the stove alone.