{"id":736203,"date":"2026-02-07T18:15:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/736203\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T18:15:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:15:48","slug":"baker-mayfield-builds-up-emeka-egbuka-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/736203\/","title":{"rendered":"Baker Mayfield Builds Up Emeka Egbuka &#8211; JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/egbuka-1110b.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-387373\" class=\"wp-image-387373\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/egbuka-1110b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"313\"   \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-387373\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">High praise from his QB.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Neither Baker Mayfield nor Emeka Egbuka had a great second half of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">If the two played after the bye the way they played before the bye, who knows, Joe might be in San Francisco now getting ready for a Bucs-Patriots Super Bowl.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Mayfield very likely was hurt and that\u2019s why he wasn\u2019t his best self, or even his average self. Egbuka, Joe has a strong hunch, got blasted by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joebucsfan.com\/2026\/02\/emeka-egbuka-it-was-a-very-tiresome-long-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">dreaded rookie wall<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Still, the two were at the NFL Honors ceremony honoring the best in the NFL. Egbuka was up for Offensive Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Fetching Colleen Wolfe caught up with Mayfield prior to the ceremony and Mayfield was proud of the rookie receiver from Ohio State.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cFor a rookie to step in and be as professional as he is, I mean, I got a first-hand view of how he treats his body, the daily routine, how smart he is,\u201d Mayfield said. \u201cWe asked him to do so much this year. [He] played every single receiver position, and as a rookie, to be able to handle that with the mental capacity, it\u2019s a lot. That\u2019s a lot on his shoulders.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cBut he handled it really, really well. He\u2019s obviously a stud. So, I mean, that\u2019s my guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">When Mayfield and Egbuka were humming, there may not have been a better offense in the NFL. Then Mike Evans got hurt. Then the offensive line began to crumble with injuries.\u00a0Then Mayfield\u2019s linebacker mentality began to catch up with him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">And before you know it, the Bucs were watching the playoffs just like you and Joe, and the team was hunting for new offensive coaches.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Cross your fingers for 2026 that the injury bug has been exterminated.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\" xml:lang=\"en\">Checking in with QB1\ufe0f\u20e3 at NFL Honors \ud83e\udee1<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfa: NBC\/NFL Network <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/s7SBPRonDH\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/s7SBPRonDH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Buccaneers\/status\/2019592454765441190?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 6, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High praise from his QB. Neither Baker Mayfield nor Emeka Egbuka had a great second half of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,2599,2598,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-736203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-bucs-message-boards","10":"tag-bucs-news","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116030720826971308","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}