Emeka Egbuka — Week 2: Five Targets, a Score, the Last Miss
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 21
Egbuka caught three of five targets for 16 yards, including a five-yard touchdown on first and goal that put Tampa Bay up 15–6 in the third quarter. He was also the target on the game's last meaningful snap, fourth and 11 at the Cleveland 20 with 22 seconds left, deep middle, incomplete. Four of his five targets came after halftime, in a 23–19 loss to the Browns.
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23 to 19, Browns, 22 seconds left, fourth and 11 at the Cleveland 20. Baker Mayfield threw deep down the middle for Emeka Egbuka, 20 yards in the air to the goal line, and it fell incomplete. −2.2 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 26.3 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it, the largest swing on any run or pass all afternoon. Tampa Bay went from about 30 percent to under four, and Cleveland knelt once to end it.
The good one came a quarter and a half earlier. Nine to six, Buccaneers, nine 39 left in the third quarter, first and goal at the five: Mayfield short left, Egbuka, five yards, touchdown, +1.0 expected points. It finished a nine-play, 65-yard drive that opened the second half, and the extra point made it 16 to six.
The line: five targets, three catches, 16 yards, one touchdown, one first down, −1.7 expected points on his targets. The catches went seven, five and four, and none of the three gained anything after the catch. 75 air yards on the five targets, most of it on the two that fell: the fourth-down throw, and second and 15 at the Tampa Bay 37 with two 49 left in the third, deep left, 39 in the air. He also carried once, second and 10 at the Cleveland 47 on the opening drive, around left end and pushed out for −3. One target before halftime, four after.
Five targets was third on the team behind Ted Hurst's seven and Cade Otton's six, and 16 yards was fifth among the seven Buccaneers who caught a pass. The downfield work went elsewhere: Tez Johnson's four targets carried a hundred 52 air yards and Hurst's seven a hundred 45.
Back in June the preview leaned against Egbuka's price, a receiver being paid for a second-year jump, and said to watch whether the targets Mike Evans left behind came to him or scattered. Week 1 was six targets and 63 yards before halftime and no targets after. Sunday was the mirror, one before and four after. Through two games he has 11 targets on 62 Tampa Bay throws, the same 11 as Otton and Bucky Irving, with Hurst at 10. That is what scattered looks like. Two games settle little, and the last throw of a close game still went to him. Tampa Bay is home to the Vikings on Sunday the 20-seventh.
_Data via nflverse._
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