Emeka Egbuka

Emeka Egbuka's rookie year landed him as the number 23 wide receiver in total PPR scoring — but only the number 34 wide receiver in PPR per game. That gap is the headline. Egbuka cleared the bar because he played all 17 games as the verified number one receiver on the Buccaneers, not because he was a weekly fantasy heater. He stepped into a Baker Mayfield-led passing game, finished as Tampa's leading receiver with 63 catches for 938 yards and 6 touchdowns, and claimed the alpha role on a team that went 8 and 9 and missed the playoffs. For a rookie wideout, that's a real foothold. The question isn't whether he can hold a job — it's what kind of week-to-week scorer he actually is once you look past the totals.

Now let's get into the numbers. Egbuka saw 127 targets and a 24 percent average target share — genuine number-one volume, mid-twenties puts you in the alpha conversation. He averaged 11.5 PPR points per game, and the week-to-week chart was a roller coaster — boom-or-bust, not steady floor. Four games at 20 PPR or more, headlined by a 31-point explosion in the Seattle win, plus 23-plus point days against Atlanta in week one and New England in week ten. But nine games under 10 PPR, including a 1.8-point dud in the week 18 win over Carolina and three straight single-digit closers to end the year. Volume held up. Production didn't always follow. Some of that is the offense around him — Tampa's passing game finished at minus 16 in expected points added, ranked 22nd in the league, and Mayfield's completion percentage was 1.6 points below expected on the season per Next Gen Stats. When the quarterback play is bottom-third, even a 24 percent target share gets choppy.

The defining shape of Egbuka's year is right there in the splits — a rookie who earned the target share of a number one receiver, but whose ceiling games came in clumps and whose floor cratered late, with five of his last six games under 11 PPR. He held the role. The efficiency around him didn't cooperate. That's the honest portrait — a real foundation, with production lagging opportunity in a way worth tracking.