TAMPA, Fla. -- It's hard to miss Tampa Bay Buccaneers middle linebacker Kwon Alexander these days. He reported to training camp Thursday with fire engine-red hair. His image, along with Lavonte David's, is now plastered on the side of Raymond James Stadium, above the Gate B entrance.

But the third-year product out of LSU has been missing from the national conversation despite finishing with 108 solo tackles last year, the most in the NFL. He also was the only NFL player with 130-plus tackles, three-plus sacks, five-plus pass breakups and at least one interception.

Those numbers weren't enough to earn him an invite to the Pro Bowl.

Kwon Alexander reported to Bucs camp on Thursday sporting an attention-grabbing look. AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

Then last month, when the NFL Network's Willie McGinest was asked to rank the top 10 linebacking groups in the NFL, the Bucs were nowhere to be found, despite he and David having combined for some of the most impressive numbers over the past two seasons. Alexander's response?

"Bulls---!" he tweeted.

The two crossed paths recently at the Nike Open, featuring the nation's top high school recruits. McGinest approached him.

"I was like, ‘Yeah, man, we need our respect though. You aren’t giving us any respect,'" Alexander said. "But you know, he was a great guy. He understood what I was saying. He was just saying that different groups ... that was for like all linebackers: Mike, Sam and the Will, so that was for all of them. But I talked to him about it, you know, put our name out there, so I got out of there fine with it.”

To be fair, McGinest did predict that Alexander would have a breakout season in 2017, stating that he's "really on the brink of establishing himself as one of the best middle linebackers in the NFL."

But it's not just Pro Bowl balloting or the NFL Network that seem to regularly overlook Alexander. Pro Football Focus has chided him the past two seasons for missed tackles despite the fact that it's a very difficult and often misleading statistic to track without direct knowledge of players' assignments. It did, however, mention that he was among their top two "most improved second-year linebackers" last season.

He's the only player over the past two years to record 235-plus tackles, six-plus sacks and three-plus interceptions. What's it going to take for him to finally get some recognition for performances like the two games where he posted 12-plus solo tackles, one of just two players in the league last year to achieve this feat?

"I feel like when we start winning, we will all get our respect, you know what I mean?" said Alexander, who has led the Bucs with 238 combined tackles the past two seasons. "That’s the plan, you know, to start winning and get some games under our belt, and I’ll come out there eventually. I’m not rushing it. It’s going to come.”

Wide receiver Mike Evans agreed -- winning changes everything.

"We don’t have that big of a market yet. But when we start winning more, [that will change]. It’s starting to improve already," Evans said. "Guys will start getting the recognition they deserve. Kwon Alexander is one of the top linebackers in the game, in my opinion.”

As for the hair?

“I just saw him in the hotel," Evans said. "That’s what he wants to do. I mean, I like it."

Added Alexander: "I just started this up. I wanted to do something new. This is it."

As far as his picture on the side of the stadium, an honor reserved for the team's premier players? It came as a total surprise.

"I didn't know," Alexander said. "Somebody sent it to me on Twitter. I was like, ‘Whoa.' I was just excited because, you know, coming from where I am from, you never know if you are going to be on the stadium or not, and I was just excited."