Emeka Egbuka — Week 1: Six Targets Before Halftime, None After

The last time Emeka Egbuka was thrown to Sunday, there were two 42 left in the first half. First and five at the Cincinnati 33, Buccaneers down 21 to three, short middle, 13 yards to the 20, first down. Two plays later Bucky Irving scored. Then halftime, and then Baker Mayfield threw 11 passes in the second half — four to Irving, three to Ted Hurst, two to Cade Otton, one to Chris Godwin, one to Tez Johnson — and Egbuka was not the target on any of them. The play-by-play does not say why. It carries no injury note on him, and this show will not guess.

What came before that was the best receiving line on the team. Six targets, five catches, 63 yards, +4.8 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. The first target was the second play of the game, a deep shot 41 yards in the air, incomplete; the next was third and one from the Tampa Bay 37 with 14 23 left in the first, 17 yards, and it was worth 4.8 points of win probability, the biggest gain on any Tampa Bay throw all day. Then 10 on second and 14, 12 on second and 12, 11 on second and 14, 13 on first and five. Every catch was a first down or a success by down and distance, and the one throw that went his way and did not count was an interception wiped out by a pass-interference penalty on the defender, which moved Tampa Bay to the Cincinnati 17.

Where he sat: second on the team in targets behind Irving's seven, first in yards, and his six targets carried 84 of the hundred 43 air yards Mayfield threw all day. Tampa Bay threw 19 times before halftime and 13 after, counting sacks, so the passing game itself shrank in the second half. But 11 throws is 11 throws.

Back in June the preview priced Egbuka as a WR19 whose target share might belong to the scheme rather than to him. Todd Bowles said before the game that he was a full go after roughly a month with a toe injury, per Rick Stroud at the Tampa Bay Times. One half in Cincinnati said the share was his; the other half said nothing at all, and until reporting fills the gap, that is the whole of what is known. Tampa Bay is home to the Browns on Sunday the twentieth.

_Data via nflverse._