{"id":21446,"date":"2025-10-23T01:06:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T01:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/why-nfl-rookies-are-shining-in-record-start-to-2025-season\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T01:06:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T01:06:47","slug":"why-nfl-rookies-are-shining-in-record-start-to-2025-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/why-nfl-rookies-are-shining-in-record-start-to-2025-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Why NFL rookies are shining in record start to 2025 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected wide receiver Emeka Egbuka with the 19th pick of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/american-football\/articles\/cjwv8qv6026o\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">this year&#8217;s NFL Draft<\/a> and he made an instant impact, scoring two touchdowns on his debut.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Veteran receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin have been struggling with injury, and now Evans is out for the rest of the season, so 23-year-old Egbuka is set to remain the main outlet for Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Egbuka&#8217;s been thrown into the fire a little bit, but everyone at Ohio State said he was a professional wide receiver playing college football,&#8221; said Miller.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;As a route runner, he was precise, he was crisp, he was sharp. He was a punt returner so you knew about his toughness and his playmaking ability.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;And getting to know him in the pre-draft process, he was mature. He was a leader at Ohio State, despite never being the number one wide receiver. He never complained, he just showed up and did his job.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Miller added that rookies like Egbuka and Tyler Warren now come into the NFL better prepared to make the step up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Warren was the 14th overall pick by the Indianapolis Colts, who are leading the way with a 6-1 record, and Warren has more receiving yards than any other tight end (439).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">NFL analyst Phoebe Schecter added: &#8220;The Colts&#8217; offence has surprised a ton of people, and Warren&#8217;s a bit like Brock Bowers [at the Raiders] last year, a tight end coming in, being productive and such a key piece within their offence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/american-football\/articles\/cy9pd17j9zdo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected wide receiver Emeka Egbuka with the 19th pick of this year&#8217;s NFL Draft and he made an instant impact, scoring two touchdowns on his debut. Veteran receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin have been struggling with injury, and now Evans is out for the rest of the season, so 23-year-old [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21448,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21446\/revisions\/21448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}