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Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka made quite the impression on the NFL stage in his rookie year in 2025.
But the Ohio State product doesn’t just think it’s his purpose to help his team reach its Super Bowl goals — preaching his faith is high on his priority list as well.
Like many in the NFL, Egbuka uses his platform on the professional level to share his Christian faith, something he said he found five years ago at a point in his life where he needed it.
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Emeka Egbuka of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers walks the field before an NFL game against the Carolina Panthers at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., on Jan. 3, 2026. (Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)
Today, if you go to his Instagram page, you’ll see his name is “Christ Follower,” and he explained to Fox News Digital how his faith drives him on and off the field.
“To put it simply, it’s such a big part of my life because of what Jesus has done in my life, and I know that he offers the same for every single person,” Egbuka said over Zoom after helping USAA with its “Huddle UP For Hurricane Prep” by building disaster kits and educating his fellow Tampa Bay citizens about hurricane safeguarding.
“He kinda met me where I was five years ago now, which seems crazy to say. I’ve been walking with Him ever since.
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Five years ago, Egbuka was just a freshman at Ohio State, hoping to make an impact for the Buckeyes. As he continued to grow across three more years of college football, he ended up helping the Buckeyes win a national championship during the 2024 season.
At the same time, he said he started to find “peace” and “joy” with his faith and God, which he feels still today.
“The sense of identity that I have that I didn’t have before. There’s a lot of things in my life and a lot of ways I was battling mentally that He pulled me out of,” Egbuka explained. “That’s stuff that goes unnoticed. That’s stuff behind the curtains that people don’t see every day because we put on these masks, put on these faces [and] facades.
Emeka Egbuka #2 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers walks off the field after defeating the Carolina Panthers at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on Jan. 3, 2026. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
“But deep down, everybody deals with stuff. It’s life. It’s tries all of us. There’s trials and tribulations that come every single day, and we can do our best to stand true and hold strong. At the end of the day, we’re human. We can only do so much to hold ourselves up when it comes to a point we make it to the end of ourselves – that’s where I was when God met me.
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“Just being able to preach about Him, use my platform to spread the Gospel. Just the hope that there is in Jesus is what I feel my purpose is.”
Entering the NFL community, Egbuka noticed others like Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud, Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Kirk Cousins and many more sharing their faith as well.
“I think it’s a blessing and privilege that we have to be able to be so open,” Egbuka added. “Obviously, it didn’t always be like that, but even nowadays in different countries, you can be murdered and killed for professing your faith and everything like that. We’re just in a society and culture that we’re able to share that openly without any hostility or backlash at us. I think it’s a huge privilege we have to be able to share our platform and use it to spread the Gospel.”
Another way Egbuka uses his platform is impacting his community like he did on Tuesday at the USAA Tampa Office, where he focused some of his offseason efforts on bringing awareness to hurricane preparation for an area susceptible to such natural disasters.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka surrounded by USAA volunteers creating hurricane disaster kits ahead of hurricane season in Florida. (USAA)
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“This isn’t my first time working with USAA, so I’m glad to be partnering with them again,” he said. “Just such a great staff and everybody who works here. They’ve been so hospitable to me and my team, and obviously it hits close to home. I have a grandfather who was a Navy SEAL, father who was an active duty soldier for a while and now works at the Department of Defense as a civil engineer. Definitely been surrounded by the military my entire life.
“Some of the disaster kits we made today, they have the whistles, the safety blankets – anything you might need when a disaster strikes. That’s what we were focused on doing today. There’s nothing we can do to prevent a hurricane from happening. Obviously, staying on top of the weather and paying attention to the alerts and everything like that. I know my house came with hurricane shutters and everything to stay on top of that. Really just trying to do our best to be proactive with it, and I think those kits we made today will go a long way.”
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