Emeka Egbuka defends Carnell Tate from the laziest talking point about the Titans first round pick, bringing comments like Malik Nabers’ even more into question
What really is a WR1 anyways? The Titans drafted Carnell Tate 4th overall, and that’s suddenly a much bigger question in Tennessee than it was before. Malik Nabers and Emeka Egbuka chimed in…
What is a wide receiver one?
We use that term interchangeably to mean different things. Sometimes it means the best receiver on the team. Sometimes it means the most productive receiver on the team. Sometimes it means the X/boundary receiver on the team. I’ve even heard it used to mean the first receiver in the progression.
The term’s ability to get lost in translation is how it sometimes gets weaponized to make a point.
Two young receivers recently fired off their takes on this topic as it pertains to the Titans’ 4th overall pick: WR Carnell Tate.
Emeka Egbuka and Malik Nabers share conflicting WR1 perspectives
Talk to someone who didn’t love the Titans taking Tate with the fourth overall pick, and you’re bound to hear something along these lines come out of their mouth: “well he’s not a WR1, he’s never been a WR1.”
In an appearance with Kay Adams on the Up & Adams show, Tate’s former teammate and current Tampa Bay Buccaneer Emeka Egbuka shrugged this idea off.
“I mean yea, we could see the correlation,” Egbuka said through a laugh. “I mean that was the same talk that was about me when I was coming out of the draft, so. I mean, at the end of the day it’s all semantics. If you can play football, you can play football. And Carnell Tate can play football. So we’re going to see what he can do come September.”
Egbuka was, based on my legwork traveling and talking to people around the league last year, perhaps the most universally adored prospect in the 2025 draft class. He was a first round pick himself, but went 19th to the Buccaneers. That made him either the second or third WR off the board in that class, depending on what you make of Travis Hunter. But Egbuka was widely regarded as a home-run, rock solid first round draft pick both off and on the field.
He fell because of exactly what he acknowledged in this clip: his ceiling was seen as lower than true top-10 picks. That’s what Tate detractors see in the Titans new receiver too.
Egbuka’s comment to Adams has turned into a bit of a Rorschach Test on social media. A lot of the response boils down to “well… you’re kind of proving our point here.” Many folks still see Egbuka as a player who falls short of the WR1 mantle. And yet, he came into a crowded WR room as a rookie Buc and emerged the most productive of the bunch. Everybody else dealt with injuries and inconsistency, which was the story of the whole team’s season. Even rookie Egbuka hit a classic rookie wall and showed his limitations (or room to grow) down the stretch as more was asked of him.
But he still moved all around the formation in his first year and finished with 63 receptions for 938 yards and 6 touchdowns. He handled the volume and put up strong numbers, particularly for a rookie on a sometimes floundering team. If Tate did exactly this for the Titans this year, nobody will be thinking about his draft price tag.
But for now, people like Giants WR Malik Nabers don’t love the selection specifically because he doesn’t feel like a WR1. On the night of the draft, Nabers had this to say about the pick:
“He’s a very talented player… he’s going to be tremendous in coach (Daboll’s) offense. It’s a very hard offense to learn, but he’s a very smart player, he’s going to get it. Wan’Dale (Robinson) is there, so he’s definitely going to help him. But I just… I don’t think this is the draft to draft a receiver that high.”
When pressed over whether he thinks he can be a WR1, Nabers didn’t hesitate.
“No. I don’t see him being a number one. He hasn’t been a number one on a team that he’s been on. You have to be a number one on a team that you’re coming from to be a number one receiver on the team that you’re going to.”
Packers EDGE Micah Parson was on the set with Nabers, and he was quick to point out the flaw in his statement here: yet another young Ohio State WR just did exactly this. Jaxson Smith-Njigba was never the “WR1” at OSU, and now he’s the highest-paid WR in the league. Another sneaky note they left out here: this is a diss on Nabers’ college teammate and seemingly good friend Brian Thomas Jr! He was a first round pick too, and the Jaguars drafted him to be their WR1. Too bad he was never the “WR1” when he played with Nabers!
The bottom line here is that this really is semantics. Tate’s rookie contract is going to be measured by one thing in the end: is he a good enough player that the Titans offer him a top contract? And did he play a significant role in Cam Ward becoming the franchise QB this city has been looking for? If the answers are yes, then nobody should care about the rest.