It was a double dose of good news for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers just ahead of what should be one of their toughest road games of the year, getting good news on a pair of players who were looked at as game time decisions.
Shortly before kickoff against the Detroit Lions in a Week 7 Monday Night Football matchup, the Buccaneers learned leading wide receiver Emeka Egbuka would play shortly after news broke NFL All-Pro wide receiver Mike Evans would play after missing the previous 2 games with a hamstring injury.
Egbuka injured his hamstring and had to leave a 30-19 win over the San Francisco 49ers in Week 6. The 2025 first round pick leads the Buccaneers with 27 receptions for 469 yards and 5 touchdowns.
“Bucs WR Emeka Egbuka checked out OK pregame and is considered ‘good to go’ tonight vs. Lions, per source,” ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler wrote on his official X account.
“Bucs WR Emeka Egbuka will play tonight, despite a hamstring injury,” NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport wrote on his official X account. “Early last week, this appeared to be a long-shot. But a pregame workout went well, and now he’ll play.”
Egbuka Decision Flies in Face of ‘Experts’
It was widely thought — essentially just after hearing the word “hamstring” — that Egbuka would miss his first NFL game in Week 7.
Dr. Jesse Morse, a sports medicine expert, initially predicted Egbuka wouldn’t return until Week 10.
“I’ll take the L on this Emeka Egbuka take,” Morse wrote on his official X account after news broke Egbuka was playing. “He’s the first WR that comes to mind that suffered a hamstring strain mid-game, didn’t return to the game and is playing less than 8 days later. There’s a first time for everything. Let’s hope he doesn’t reinjure it.”
“Emeka Egbuka playing tonight on MNF. In a rare act of full transparency, Tampa Bay also released his X-Rays,” Fantasy Points analyst Theo Gremminger wrote on his official X account, accompanied by a popular sub-meme of a chest x-ray showing a chest full of pit bulls, playing off the “He Got That Dog In Him” meme … which we acknowledge is confusing but still funny.
Egbuka-Evans Could Be Difference Makers
If there was ever a time for Egbuka and Evans to come back, it’s now.
Were those 2 not to have played, the Buccaneers would have had to rely on a heavy dose of tight end Cade Otton along with rookie wide receiver Tez Johnson and second year wide receiver Kam Johnson.
While that doesn’t sound great on paper, it’s worth pointing out both Tez Johnson and Kam Johnson caught their first career touchdown passes against the 49ers and did so with Egbuka, Evans and NFL All-Pro wide receiver Chris Godwin all out of the lineup.
For Evans, it’s the second consecutive season he’s missed 3 games due to a hamstring injury, although that didn’t stop him from tying Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice’s NFL record with an 11th consecutive 1,000 yard receiving season.
Through 3 games in 2025, Evans has 14 receptions for 140 yards and 1 touchdown. That’s just slightly behind his pace through 3 games in 2024, when he had 10 receptions for 120 yards and 2 touchdowns.
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