Kicking off our look ahead to the cream of the 2025 draft crop is something of a 'hometown' kid for the Fantasy Index: Emeka Egbuka.
Background
Egbuka is a Tacoma, Washington native who played his high school ball just a few miles further down the Puget Sound in Steilacoom. After a prodigious junior season that earned him 2019 Gatorade Player of the Year honors for Washington State, Egbuka committed to Ohio State as an early enrollment in 2021 and opted to forego a senior season that had been postponed for COVID.
After a freshman season spent marinating as a deep reserve and kick returner Egbuka became an integral part of the Buckeyes' succession plan in 2022, stepping right into an every-down role in the wake of the NFL departures of Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave. And with CJ Stroud pushing hard to close out his collegiate career with a Heisman Egbuka did not lack for work, piling up 74 receptions, 1151 receiving yards and 12 total touchdowns, totals that would prove to all be highwater marks for him as a Buckeye. The loss of Jaxon Smith-Njigba the following year, coupled with the transition from Stroud to Kyle McCord led to Egbuka being thrust into the vacated 'JSN' role as a player who saw most of his looks in the short area of the field: Slants, screens, end-arounds, shallow out cuts, etc.
Egbuka's numbers pulled back sharply in his new role, and although missing three games with a high ankle sprain was a big part of that his receptions (5.7 per game in 2021, 4.1 in '22) and yardage (95.2/game in '21, 54.0 in '22) as a junior were well off the previous year's pace. Will Howard's arrival to replace McCord did little to perk up Egbuka's 'second fiddle' production; he would finish second on the team in yardage and touchdowns to true freshman Jeremiah Smith, a bonafide phenom in the Marvin Harrison Jr. mold whose name will most definitely return to grace this website in a few years' time.
Tape
Just as his production implies, the tape on Emeka Egbuka is a mixed bag. Let's start with the positives: Egbuka has tons of experience operating inside and out and running the entire route tree in pro style offenses with everything from future NFL superstars (Stroud) to guys just hoping to get drafted (McCord, Howard). Versatility is an underrated attribute for NFL receivers, and Egbuka has it in spades. A plus athlete who boasts a purported 40-yard dash time in the 4.3s, Egbuka is accustomed to doing the dirty, chain-moving work now as a facilitator for other, bigger names to operate deeper downfield.
While his teammates feasted on the sort of usage that is tougher to make translate to the next level, Egbuka became proficient working in front of the safeties across the middle, on slants and other quick-hitters where he was asked to create on his own. He showed plus ability with the ball in his hands, consistently making the first tackler miss or at least dragging him for an extra couple of yards. Egbuka is comfortable tracking the ball from virtually any body position and has good-to-great fluidity through his trunk, allowing him to transition from receiving the ball with his back turned to the defense to turning it upfield with balance, power and quickness.
Egbuka also possesses good field vision and intuition, frequently slowing down to set up his own blocks to turn plays from chunk gains into home runs and running to space both with and without the ball in his hands. Egbuka's got reliable hands and has shown an ability to quickly get new quarterbacks to trust him to run routes in traffic and get to his spot 'on time' on timing routes, a critical skill for compiling any sort of volume in today's NFL.
Now for the cons: I don't know what Egbuka truly does well. While Egbuka demonstrates plenty of feel for navigating in the open field, I question the physical tools; his lateral agility is thoroughly average, flirting heavily with underwhelming and he plays with very little twitchiness, favoring an almost NBA-style 'eurostep' when attempting to juke defenders over the conventional, violent stop-start mechanics we tend to expect. I am also deeply skeptical of the 4.3 straight line speed being advertised here, as both Egbuka's initial acceleration and cruising speeds do not jump off the screen at me - I'll be surprised if he clocks a 40-yard dash time better than 4.4 flat at the NFL combine, if he opts to test on it at all. And while Egbuka's not averse to physical play, at 6'1"/205 he doesn't have the size nor the strength to break out of tackles. In a world dominated by the top 1% of the top 1% of athletic specimens, Egbuka will need to win with vision and instincts if he's going to have a multi-year run playing starter's snaps at the next level.
NFL Projection & Fit
A three-year run as a starter for a top tier program like Ohio State with a little KR/PR experience to boot all but assures Egbuka goes in the first two rounds of the 2025 NFL Draft, with a selection in the latter part of the first round a distinct possibility. The Steelers are a popular pick for Egbuka's NFL destination, and while they are partial to Buckeyes there's enough of a skillset overlap with Roman Wilson that I'd tentatively expect the Steelers to use their late first round pick elsewhere (although with the Steelers' historic aversion to paying their wideouts top dollar and the mercurial George Pickens entering a contract year in 2025, don't rule it out). But unless a team falls head over heels for him in pre-draft, I'm sending Egbuka to the desert at 34th overall to help Cam Ward right the (pirate) ship in Las Vegas, with Tennessee at 37 also making plenty of sense with the Titans currently appearing willing to give Will Levis one more chance in 2025.
Egbuka's an interesting commentary on what it means to be a potential first round wide receiver in the NFL in 2025: he doesn't have the overwhelming collegiate numbers, he's kind of a 'tweener' as a guy who's a tad small to consistently line up outside but bigger than your conventional slot man, and I'm not expecting him to blow up the Combine - he may even skip out on some testing. But he has two years of experience being used in a way that is eminently compatible with most successful passing offenses in the NFL right now, and he may have the athleticism, instincts and grit to faithfully process a fair amount of short throw volume, like an Amon-Ra St. Brown in Detroit or a Rashee Rice in KC.
Of course, it's very much worth pointing out that Egbuka has never managed a hostile takeover of the pecking order and forced the team to inundate him with targets, operating strictly as Robin and not Batman at Ohio State; he may be too much of a jack of all trades and master of none to compel his eventual NFL team to funnel him the football, and he could easily turn out to be more scheme-dependent than most highly drafted receivers. One thing's for sure: Perhaps more so than any other top prospect at the position, who winds up taking Egbuka should speak volumes - especially if they trade up to go and get him.
Draft: 2nd round, 34th overall to the Las Vegas Raiders
Ceiling: Jaxon Smith-Njigba
Floor: Curtis Samuel
Next Up: Quinshon Judkins
—Luke Wilson