The biggest steal of the 2025 NFL Draft is not who you would expect

No matter how deep NFL teams go into the evaluation process before the NFL Draft with analytics, player interviews, interviewing the player's barber from his hometown, talking to coaches, watching tape, etc., there will always be players who slip through the cracks for no good reason.

This isn't a new thing in the NFL, which has been overthinking prospects for decades upon decades. Every year, there are players who fall all over the draft board, even within the first round itself, that you look back on in hindsight and wonder how teams missed the boat so badly.

This year's player the NFL overlooked, perhaps more than most others, is former Ohio State Buckeyes wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, who fell to the 19th overall pick and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Emeka Egbuka already looking like the steal of the 2025 NFL Draft (and it's only camp)

Watching Egbuka over the last few years at Ohio State, someone is going to have to explain what it is the NFL decided wasn't worthy of a top-10 or even top-15 overall pick in the draft. Especially as we've seen the wide receiver position becoming a $30M per year position in the NFL today, a player like Egbuka on a five-year rookie deal could be a huge asset to any roster.

Egbuka can play the slot. He can play on the outside. He showed off elite athletic metrics in the pre-draft process. Maybe more telling of his love for the game than anything, he was more than a willing blocker for the Buckeyes -- he was an exceptional blocker.

He's well-coached, he runs great routes, he has strong hands, and he has the "my ball" mentality at the catch point.

What we're seeing from Egbuka early on is indicative of some very similar traits we saw from Justin Jefferson, another player who was oddly overlooked at LSU for the amount of work that he did in the slot, and partially because he was overshadowed by higher-profile teammates like Ja'Marr Chase.

There's no question that Egbuka was overlooked in the draft process at this point, and other teams should be embarrassed that they missed out. The Buccaneers took him 19th overall despite not having a desperate need at the receiver position. They've got both Mike Evans and Chris Godwin in the fold, and they've drafted some intriguing young players in recent years.

But with your premium NFL Draft capital, you can't pass on potentially top-flight players at premium positions. The Bucs do business well and taking the best player on their board will pay huge dividends for them sooner rather than later, both on the field and on their salary books.