Most people loved the Bucs' draft. From Emeka Egbuka to Tez Johnson, the Bucs had people generally saying good things about the plan all weekend. Even after the fact, ESPN's draft guru Mel Kiper described the Bucs' newest players as 'decent draft class.' I'll take it!
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In fact, the Bucs' draft class was so 'decent' that it even has some of Tampa's all-time greatest rivals singing their praises. Seems pretty decent to me. If you had to guess one player who would refuse to say something nice about the Bucs, who would it be? The one guy whose career was a thorn in the Bucs' side for almost a decade? No, not Drew Brees. Not Matt Ryan either. Maybe this game wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be.
It's Steve Smith. Yes, that Steve Smith. While talking on his podcast about Bucs' first round pick Emeka Egbuka, Smith was so complimentary that I'm starting to wonder if he's actually playing some sort of sadistic mind game. But if we're taking the praise at face value, it's pretty spectacular.
Steve Smith has nice things to say about the Bucs' 2025 draft class and that makes me skeptical
"The biggest thing that I walked away from, talk about a trait — not every guy has this trait, but Egbuka has this trait — quarterback-friendly route running," Smith said. "He knows where to feel, he knows where the ball should be going and where the ball should not be going and he knows how the defense is being played."
So maybe he's not exactly praising the Bucs, per se, but a little light use of the distributive property makes this an easy fix. If you're complimenting a Bucs' player, you're complimenting the Bucs – them's the rules.
Which is why I'm so skeptical about this. Smith certainly hasn't lost his fastball since retiring into the podcast game, and there's something about this that just feels fishy. Maybe this is just the trauma from 10 years of Smith absolutely torching the Bucs speaking up, but something doesn't add up. Egbuka *is* everything that Smith mentions here, and we'll take a compliment wherever we can get 'em, but I'm not letting my guard down just yet. Once Egbuka goes off for 9 catches, 110 yards and a touchdown against the Panthers, we'll see how much podcast praise there really is.