May 27, 2026, 10:32 AM ET

Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin Jr. struggled through the 2025 season, dealing with the lingering effects of a gruesome ankle dislocation that ended his 2024 campaign and finishing the year with a career-low 360 receiving yards across his nine games played. Godwin heads into his ninth season at 30 years old, and while it's easy to write him off as a past-his-prime veteran, he was playing some of the best football of his career leading up to the injury, trailing only Ja'Marr Chase with 16.1 half-PPR points per game through the first seven weeks of the 2024 season. Playing in only two of the team's first 10 games in 2025, the majority of Godwin's action came during Tampa's disjointed end-of-season run, and while roster and coaching changes should help to get things back on track, Godwin may not be one of the team's obvious benefactors. For the first time since 2013, the Buccaneers will be without six-time Pro Bowler Mike Evans, but that could have more of an impact on some of the younger players on the roster, as the veterans' roles have hardly overlapped in their extended time together. Godwin has operated primarily out of the slot, a fruitful role in an offense that deployed 11 personnel at the league's second-highest rate in 2025, but projected changes for 2026 could lead to a slow phasing out. New offensive coordinator Zac Robinson arrives in Tampa having last led an Atlanta offense that operated primarily out of two-receiver sets. If those tendencies follow him to the Buccaneers, Godwin's redundancies to 2025 first-round pick Emeka Egbuka could see him ceding work to the bigger-bodied 2026 third-round pick Ted Hurst. If Godwin is capable of regaining his pre-injury form and adjusting his role to stave off target competition, he will be one of the biggest steals in the late rounds of 2026 drafts, but with age and injury history working against him, he has fallen to WR44 in RotoBaller's redraft rankings.--Patrick McGrath