Bucs rookie WR Emeka Egbuka on Baker Mayfield BALLIN’ + Ohio State transition | The Pat McAfee Show

Bucs rookie WR Emeka Egbuka on Baker Mayfield BALLIN’ + Ohio State transition | The Pat McAfee Show

Joining us now is a man that might be changing how we call things forever as well. He’s a rookie in the NFL. He’s already leading the NFL in a lot of different categories. He’s been a player of a month already. There’s talking about him being the favorite for the offensive rookie of the year. And coming out of Ohio State, there wasn’t a lot of fanfare about him because this guy doesn’t care, just likes the ball and they love him in Tampa Bay. Ladies and gentlemen, the explosive Acha Buka. How are you, dude? What up? How you guys doing? I’m doing good. Hey, we’re great. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, are you an Adidas athlete? I am. I am an Adidas athlete, bro. They’re giving money to everybody. They’re trying to get into football. It feels like Adidas is trying to get into football for real. It and we appreciate that that Adidas is getting in. Nike’s in. And I think Adidas is saying we picked the right guy here and you. Let’s let’s chitchat about how this has gone thus far from our perspective. Okay. AJ Hawk, obviously Ohio State legend, much like yourself. He has a tree on campus. You certainly will have a tree on campus at some point. And you might be the president of Ohio like AJ Hawk was a couple years ago, but at Ohio State, you’re always like the number two wide receiver or number three wide receiver. That was in topic of conversation. Always did your job. Never bitched at all. I think AJ actually said a Mecha Buka whenever he gets into the NFL is going to be a guy. It has certainly been that. Do you think your journey through Ohio State, how it went, has prepared you for this type of situation being in the NFL? And have you always been like the most mature guy of all time basically to handle all these things? Uh to the first part of your question, yeah, I think Ohio State has uh you know, made me ready for my NFL career in a lot of ways. I think something that the wide receiver room at Ohio State prize oursel on is, you know, having three wide receiver ones at any given time. So, um we have all the ability to be able to dominate any given game. Uh and we’re all super confident in that ability. And just being in that room for so many years and competing with those guys day by day just made me into such a better football player. That was part of the reason that I went to Ohio State was because, you know, I was a I was a five-star top 10 recruit, you know, number one wide receiver in my class, all that type of stuff. And, you know, could have gone anywhere. Bama, uh, you know, Clemson was hot at the time when I was coming out, but I wanted to go to Ohio State because I knew that that receiving room was special and I I needed to be um, you know, I wanted to grow my ability and not just see the field right away. I knew I needed to actually push myself because I have, you know, big goals for my future in the NFL. See, that’s a super mature way of looking as a 17-year-old, 18-year-old. So, that goes back to the end of my thing. Yes. You’ve always been mature throughout it all. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah. In that receiver room, we always hear about Brian Hart. So, I actually played with Heartline. I I knew firsthand that guy is an absolute stud on the field and as a recruiter and a coach he is. But, what is it what separates him and Ryan Debt, you think, as coaches that kind of continues? We we know everybody has talent, but you guys just continue, you know, three, four, five deep. It doesn’t matter who they could throw to at Ohio State, you guys are going to get it done. Like, what what separates them, do you think, as coaches? Uh, I think a lot of the success that you see from the Ohio State receivers is a reflection of Coach Harlline’s mentality. Um, and it’s not that he he made us that way, but he recruits like-minded individuals, people who are perfectionists and, you know, want the most out of their career that they can get. and in some and in some senses, coach Hart kind of expects more out of you than you expect of yourself sometimes. So, um he he believes in all of us and our all of our ability to be able to succeed and and do everything that we want to do and he puts so much into uh coaching us and and you know, making us know what we need to know to go out there and execute. That was at Ohio State. And then now at Tampa Bay, I think Baker said you said something during the spring that blew his mind. He’s like, “Wait a minute, this might be a guy.” You’ve been one of his go-tos. And there’s some stats that Hembo sent us over and you have two 50-yard catches, only wide receiver with more than one thus far in the season. Seven 25 yard catches, that’s most in the NFL. Five touchdown catches, average 33 yard. I mean that you are explosive in every facet and you make insane catches look very easy and you’re always open. It’s not supposed to be like this for rookies in the NFL. It’s supposed to be the grown mansley. You’re supposed to struggle a little bit. Instead, we’re seeing the best football from you and also the best football from Baker. But they’re not the only ones. AQ has a question for you. As a former Super Bowl champion, Tampa Bay Buccaneer. Yeah, I played with Chris Godwin and Mike Evans down there. How has having them in the room, veteran leaders, as well as Baker, helped you transition in your rookie season? It’s been super instrumental in my success. Um, obviously the reason, uh, you know, part of the reason I was the first round pick is because of my natural talent and my ability that God gave me. Um, but just the confidence that they put into me. Um, just really on the mental side of things, just making sure I know my job. Um, they’re always they always have an open year for me to ask any question. I’m a big question asker, so, you know, I probably annoy them with how much I ask, but they’re always ready to answer and give me the real. And, uh, you know, they just pump so much confidence into me. like Mike is is a dude who’s constantly in my ear telling me, you know, you were built for this, you can do this, you were made for this, like you’re that guy. And like just having someone like that, a Hall of Famer who believes in you to that type of level, uh just makes you go out on the field and and really, you know, ball out and do what you were made to do. You’re certainly doing that. And believing in yourself and believing in your team is potentially why you guys have four fourth quarter comebacks this season to start the year. the culture there seemingly great, especially with what you just said about Mike Evans, relaying to you, a man who could potentially take the the mantle of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver for the next 15 years like Mike Evans has been able to do. No uh pettiness, no jealousy. Instead, it’s complete opposite, gassing you up. I love that. And your quarterback has been doing the same thing except for in one particular time. Go ahead, Ty. Yeah, Mecca. A couple weeks ago, uh Bake and and Pat mentioned it. you’ve had, you know, like one to two highlight reel catches almost every single week. But a couple weeks ago, you had a sick one-handed catch, and I think we got some audio of Baker basically telling you like, “Hey, Rook, you know, use two hands, okay? You’re making my ball look less pretty by making a one-handed catch.” At this point, now a couple weeks removed from that, have you gotten are you you have cart blanch now where it’s basically like if Bake’s going to throw it to you, it’s like, “Hey, Bake, shut up. I’m gonna snag this thing and there’s a good chance I’m gonna score. How’s that gone? Nah, I mean, our relationship is great. Um, you know, if you guys get a chance to talk to him, you can ask him, but like ever since that sometimes I’ll just onehand something in practice just to just to look at him and laugh. Uh, but no, we have a great relationship. Um, you know, it’s all, you know, we’re joking around. We’re having fun. And that’s really what it’s about at the end of the day. Like, we’re having fun playing football. And uh in the high stress situation the in the lives that we live sometimes you can lose that a little bit. Um obviously winning is the most fun is the most fun thing. But um just to be able to ball with your boys like like you used to is uh you know something that we really enjoy. So did you enjoy Baker uh in that Seattle Seahawks fan? Uh we loved it. We love the little softs that he still has. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he was balling. He was balling. Uh, you know, that’s a I’m from Seattle, so um it’s been a lifelong dream of mine to to play in that stadium and, uh, to have a guy like that go out there with some fire and, you know, talk to the historic fan who’s always there at the opposing tunnel. Uh, you know, it just got the whole team going and, uh, obviously his performance speaks for itself and, you know, he’s just a baller. Don’t wake them up, I think, is the thing. You know, and I talked about this yesterday. It’s like teams might need to send out like emails to season ticket holders and people that are going to be there like, “Hey, we just don’t talk to the the the quarterback.” Michael Baker. Yeah. Actually, bring signs. Pro Bakers. Baker, welcome to town. Great to have you. BYU was doing at WVU. Did you see that? Oh, yeah. They’re making them ice cream and singing their songs. We went out there. Then they beat us by 50. I mean, it was unbelievable. They go to Veryospitable as is Ohio State. We don’t have to get into it. Uh, we got a number one wide receiver in the country saying, “I want to go to that place because there’s other number one wide receivers.” I’ll tell you what, West Virginia would die to have that. We We’d really enjoy to have that type of situation happening in our particular uh locker room. Now, let’s talk about you and football, your football life. Go ahead, Debb. Yeah, Mackie, you talked about your upbringing in Seattle. I think I heard on the broadcast about your uh spectacular baseball career growing up. You won pitch, hit and run. Started getting college offers pretty early and then after co I believe a couple seasons were canceled. You committed I guess fully to football. How was that decision uh made? Obviously you worked it worked out. You said you were a fivestar number one wide receiver in the country coming out as well, but how did that uh I guess final decision how did that work out to be just straight football? Yeah, I mean honestly it was it was less of a decision and uh more of just like baseball just finding its way out of my life. Um, you know, I still I love the game of baseball. Um, you know, still miss it from time to time, but you know, I played my freshman and my sophomore year, uh, in in high school. Then co hit. Um, my junior year was entirely canceled. I played for a select baseball team in the summer. All my summer tournaments were cancelled. And then senior year rolls around and I early committed to Ohio State. Um, and you know, I could have played baseball at Ohio State. I had uh, you know, that opportunity. I talked to the baseball coach and everything and um you know once I got there kind of got a got a grasp of the football schedule I was like you know what I’m I’m just I’m going to stick to one sport. How old were you when you started getting those offers? I saw a report online. It was AI over view and they said eight years old baseball. Yeah that I don’t know how true that is but you must have been hitting you start getting offers. No, I don’t think I had any official offers when I was eight, but um you know, football offers started coming in when I was 14. Um and then, you know, from those various schools who offered me for football, I’ll get in touch with their their baseball coaches as well and kind of chop it up. But, you know, at at high school and all my travel tournaments and stuff like that, I had MLB scouts in there. So, and stuff there. So, it was pretty cool at a young age. Yeah, we assume it would have worked out if that would have happened. Can I ask you about your junior senior year being co years? Because we talk about your generation. I want to let you know that our show, I’m 38 years old. We got everywhere from 24, 25 to 41 on our show basically is our range. And we had a vastly different life obviously than the group right after us growing up. But your generation, the COVID high school life forming, friendship forming, societal interaction forming years just kind of taken away from you. Like do you look back on those years? Like what do you take away from those? you baseball ends up out of your life. I don’t know about like homecoming and prom and like all the things that also got taken away, but do you just try not to think about it or do you have like you look back on and say like, “Well, it was actually good for me because of this.” Like is that how you try to spin it? How do you kind of view it? Because you’re the first person from that generation that I’m getting to ask this question. So, know that whatever you say, I’m going to take with me for the rest of my life. Okay, no pressure. Yeah. No, I mean I can’t speak for everybody. Um, you know, everyone has their own experience and everything like that. for me. Um, you know, COVID was it was strange at first. Um, yeah, they were kind of really strict on all the on all the rules and, you know, wear your mask everywhere and you can’t travel to other people’s houses. So, like I remember I was locked up in the house for a little bit and I was like, “Yo, this is crazy.” So, I was just doing school from home and everything like that. But, um, kind of as we got a grasp of what it was and and got an understanding of it. Um, for me personally, like my schedule was all the way messed up in co like I didn’t have to sleep uh go to sleep early to go to school and everything like that. My schedule like I still remember it to this day. I would wake up at like 11 or noon and then I would go to I would go to my first workout which was uh like uh wide receiver training with my wide receiver coach. Come back, get some lunch, then I’d go to lift, come back, do my homework. Um, and then like from there on I was like, you know, on the game playing Call of Duty with my friends and stuff like that, just staying up like all hours of the night because I didn’t have to wake up for school. So like my schedule was definitely a little messed up. But um I I spent a lot of time like playing football. Like I really did. I spent so much time playing football. Like I didn’t have to go to school. I was meeting with my wide receiver coach every day, honing my craft, getting strong in the gym. Like that was the strongest I was was during co like I came in my freshman year and you know I was benching I don’t know I did like 225 for 14 like as a freshman just coming in like just knocked them out and obviously I got stronger throughout my college career but like I was strong when I came into to Ohio State. You’re a professional athlete in the offseason through co Yeah. Yeah. I’m going game a little bit. Yeah. You guys keep it down. Got a big one like maybe some popcorn as well, you know, and then wake up at 11:00. All right. Let’s get the first workout in of the day. Let’s go work on some technique. Let’s go ahead and get a lift in. Oh, we got to do school. They said, “Got an email here. All right, I’ll take this test. Let me go through this.” Cuz like when I when I went to Ohio State, they didn’t require any ACT, any SAT. Like none of that was required to actually get into school. So like nice, you know, I kind of just That’s my offer. Ohio State, huh? That wasn’t Ohio State. Oh yeah. Okay, now it all makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. We got we got professional athletes coming out of co benching 225 14 times. No ACT, no SAT. Come on in here. Yeah, we got all the number ones that we need. Gez, Ryan Day is doing it right over there. And so are you, man. It’s been an honor to watch you honestly learn about your story more and more and then watch you just kind of dominate the NFL while also doing that in college. I think you have multiple Ohio State records, but you were never the one that was being like heralded. So, you literally just had to sit there and watch your best friends get a lot of shine shine and just kind of go through it. I’ll block downfield. I’ll do whatever I got to do. And now you’re in the NFL and you’re the superstar, dude. You’ve earned it. You deserve it. And we’re happy for you. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Adidas picked the right one, man. Didn’t they did? Yes, they did. Hey, if you know anybody at Adidas, let them know. We love We love B, too. We love B, too. You’re the man, ladies and gentlemen. Acha Buka. Yeah. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie WR Emeka Egbuka joins The Pat McAfee Show.

0:00 Journey at Ohio State
3:40 Transitioning to the Bucs
7:02 Baker Mayfield chirping

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