It's been a rough few weeks for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, culminating a nadir on Sunday Night Football. In front of the entire NFL audience, the Buccaneers soiled the bed with a truly atrocious display on both sides of the ball, as the Los Angeles Rams showed Todd Bowles's defense levels while star quarterback Baker Mayfield suffered both insult and injury in the face of MVP front runner Matthew Stafford's big day.
The Buccaneers struggles over the last few weeks have hampered no single player more than de facto No. 1 wide receiver Emeka Egbuka. Thrust into the top role with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin's injuries, even the latter's return could not help Egbuka produce a better day.
Though he did post one 115 yard performance against the New England Patriots a few weeks ago, those yards came on 13 targets for a good - but not great - 8.8 yards per target. Since back to back 100 yard games against the Philadelphia Eagles and Seattle Seahawks, in which he dumped 163 yards on a perfect seven of seven targets vs. Seattle, Egbuka's numbers have been a lot quieter.
Emeka Egbuka isn't producing enough
Egbuka was a non factor against the San Francisco 49ers, and despite being fed a great deal of targets from Mayfield, he was unable to register even 60 receiving yards against the Detroit Lions, New Orleans Saints, Buffalo Bills, or Rams.
Some of the lack of production is on Egbuka, but most of it isn't even on the rookie wide receiver. He didn't go from shredding up two great teams in the Eagles and Seahawks to slumping against all opponents just because of the injuries around him or his own rookie learning curve.
Firstly, Josh Grizzard has been doing a terrible job as Buccaneers offensive coordinator this season. And he's failed no player over the last few weeks more than he's failed Egbuka. He's just not scheming Egbuka open. The Bucs aren't creating those decoy routes or giving Egbuka and Mayfield enough option routes to work with so that Egbuka can spring open in the middle of the field for those easy YAC throws.
That's just down to bad coaching. Egbuka is having to fend off a lot of safety help, double coverage, and tight coverage. He has to fight hard to get open. And then when is open, Mayfield is doing a dreadful job of finding him. Mayfield is late to pull the trigger on down field throws to Egbuka, and he's straight up missing him, especially in the red zone in those tight margin throws. Egbuka has struggled lately, but the numbers don't tell the full story of how the Bucs are letting him down.