Bucky Irving

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• Camp · Aug 23, 2026Aug 23, 2026

  Bucky Irving Camp Update — August 23: Fourteen live yards, shoulder intact

  Irving took his first live contact of the summer against Kansas City — three carries, fourteen yards, out clean — the proof of burst the surgically repaired shoulder had been waiting to offer. Small, but it was the exact box the file needed checked.

• Camp · Aug 16, 2026Aug 17, 2026

  Bucky Irving Camp Update — August 16: Full-Go, No Restrictions, No Asterisk

  Todd Bowles says Irving is full speed with zero restrictions, even in pads, and the surgically repaired shoulder made it through camp without a whisper. The June bet on the role now has the health box checked.

• 2026 PreviewJun 15, 2026

  Bucky Irving 2026 Season Preview — a top-18 rate on the league's worst rushing tape

  Irving finished as RB33 overall across 10 games, averaging 12.3 half-PPR points per game. That per-game rate reflected a lead role in the Tampa backfield — the kind of opportunity-driven foundation that tends to carry between seasons — but his 2025 was cut short before a fuller sample could develop. Whether the role holds is the central question, since volume is the repeatable piece here.

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  Show notes & transcript

  Bucky Irving averaged a top-18 running back's points per game last season — and ran the ball worse than almost anyone in football. Both of those are true, and squaring them is the entire 2026 question. The Muffed 2026 preview.

  The surface line looks fine: in 10 games, Irving posted 12-four points a night, an RB18 per-game rate, on a hundred 73 carries and 30 catches. The signature was a Week 4 showcase against Philadelphia — 63 rushing yards, a hundred two receiving, the kind of pass-game value that travels. But the rate hides the problem: his efficiency cratered. He ran for a hundred 26 yards below expected — dead last, 40-ninth of 49 qualified backs — at three-four a carry, and he scored exactly one rushing touchdown all year.

  The arc is just two seasons, and it's a step backward. As a rookie in 2024 he was a revelation: 13-oh a game, 1100 yards, eight rushing touchdowns on real efficiency. Last year the per-game points held up, but the underlying running fell apart and the eight touchdowns became one. That's a lot of decline hiding under a stable-looking average.

  Here's the honest read. We don't get to bank a year-two leap for running backs — we tested that pattern and it failed, so the rookie-flash upside isn't something the data will underwrite. And the 2025 efficiency was genuinely alarming. The one thing pointing up is the touchdowns: one rushing score is starvation, and that number almost has to climb. So the case is a young back with a real receiving role and positive touchdown regression, set against a season in which he was the league's least efficient runner — on a sample shortened by injury.

  The situation, per the reports, is the swing factor, and it moved the right way in June: Irving had shoulder surgery and missed the offseason program, but he returned to team drills on June eleventh showing the explosion intact — with full-contact clearance expected during training camp, not formally issued yet. The backfield resolved around him: Rachaad White signed with Washington, and Todd Bowles has been explicit — Bucky is the 1A, with Kenny Gainwell, the third-down veteran signed from Pittsburgh, as the 1B. If the bad efficiency was the injury, the talent that made him a rookie standout is still in there. If it wasn't, the price is paying for a player who's already regressed.

  The price: pick 56, the 20-fourth back. Verdict: WATCHLIST — the per-game rate and the lead role say draft him, the worst-in-the-league efficiency and the injury say demand a discount and proof. The counter for him: a lead back with a receiving floor and touchdown regression on his side, healthy, is value at RB24. Against: you're paying for the rookie, and last year's tape was the worst rushing season in the league. Which one shows up is the bet.

  September watch: the explosiveness first — is the burst back, or did the shoulder and the down year signal something real; then the touchdown rate, where one rushing score is the floor. If he's one of your guys, Muffed builds this show for your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.

• 2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026

  Bucky Irving 2025 Season in Review

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  Show notes & transcript

  Bucky Irving finished 2025 as the number 34 running back in total PPR scoring but the number 18 running back in PPR per game among backs with six or more outings. That gap tells the whole story before we open the hood — Irving was a productive per-game asset when he played. He only played 10 games. That absence dragged the season-long line down. When he was on the field, he was Tampa's lead back in a committee with Rachaad White, and he flashed real receiving juice in a Baker Mayfield offense that loved to dump him the ball in space. But the rushing efficiency underneath the box score is where this season gets complicated.

  Now let's dig into the numbers. Irving carried it 173 times for 588 yards — a 3.4 yards per carry average that, in context, is genuinely rough. The advanced data confirms it wasn't bad luck: minus 126 rushing yards over expected on the season, minus 0.74 per attempt, 49th among qualified runners. Bottom of the barrel. The receiving work is where he made his fantasy money — 30 catches on 35 targets for 277 yards and three receiving touchdowns, with 360 total yards after the catch and an 11 percent target share. His 13.8 PPR per game average masks a real boom-or-bust split: his first four games went 14.5, 18.1, 13.9, and 25.5, a steady-to-ceiling stretch. Over his last six games after returning, he cleared 11 PPR just twice and posted single digits three times, including a 7.1 at Carolina and an 8.3 at Miami. That is a back grinding for volume without the efficiency to reward it, and only one rushing touchdown across 173 carries underlines how little he cashed in at the goal line.

  The play that captures Irving's 2025 best is the 72-yard touchdown catch against the Eagles in Week 4 — second and seven, third quarter, Tampa down 13 to 31, Mayfield hits him on a deep shot left and Irving turns 24 air yards into 48 yards after the catch for the score. That one play was worth nearly six expected points and powered his 25.5-PPR ceiling game of the year. It's the perfect snapshot of why his per-game rank stayed respectable even as the rushing grind got muffed — when Tampa let him work in space as a receiver, he smashed. Between the tackles, the math stopped working.