Whenever a discussion arises about the 2014 supremely talented wide receiver draft class, Mike Evans remains a constant in those conversations as one of the best to come out that year. Entering his fifth season in the NFL, Evans has seen a fantastic level of success with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers which forced the team to reward and secure his services beyond his rookie term fifth year option, locking Evans up for an additional five seasons to the tune of 82.5 million dollars with 55 million of that being fully guaranteed. Upon signing his new lucrative contract, not one negative perception came to pass from media circles suggesting the money and term wasn’t on par to what Evans has produced on the field, and we fully agree.

Mike Evans from day one donning the Tampa red, has proven his worth and continues to improve his craft even as the Buccaneers struggle to find a solidified identity behind their franchise quarterback Jameis Winston. Mike Evans began his career with a quarterback tandem of Josh McCown and Mike Glennon throwing him the ball, which still equated to great rookie success seeing over 1000 yards receiving and a whopping 12 touchdowns on the year - thus building the perceptions that Mike was a true difference maker at the position. While the Bucs realized they required a heavy upgrade at the quarterback position the following offseason, they drafted Jameis Winston (2015) to hopefully begin a process that would instill better execution resulting in victories on a regular basis. Mike Evans did in fact see an uptick in his statistics in the 2015 season with Winston, which provided further credence that the Tampa Bay rebuild was beginning to take shape. Continuing to see statistical success the following season (2016), Mike Evans hit new career highs in receptions (96) and yardage (1321) while matching his previous high in touchdown receptions (12) concluding a banner year.

Completing his first three seasons, everything appeared on the up-and-up regarding statistical success, but overall didn’t translate in the win column for the Bucs as a whole. In reviewing last seasons tallies for Evans and the Buccaneers, Evans saw something of a regression from what was becoming the constant whenever he completed a full campaign. Injuries haven’t been an issue thus far in Mike’s four years completed, which has seen him only miss three contests over those four years. The Tampa Bay offense seemed out of sorts last season along with three missed games from their starting pivot (Winston), which led to Evans narrowly achieving his fourth straight 1000-yard season. Like any receiver in the NFL, the reliance on top notch quarterback play is evident for personal achievement which wasn’t necessarily the case for Evans and the rest of the Bucs receiving core. Even still, with the lack of team progression, Mike Evans remains a topflight producer in the league and we see nothing on the horizon that would contradict that statement.

As we enter the 2018 season, Tampa Bay was hit with an unfortunate situation that saw Jameis Winston suspended for the first three contests for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy potentially derailing the start of the Bucs new campaign. Essentially, to start the season, long time NFL back up and journeymen Ryan Fitzpatrick will be under center in Winston’s absence which could be a difficult task to gain much traction in terms of victories and heavy statistical performances. The positives with Fitzpatrick beginning the season as the starting quarterback is that historically, he targets his top receivers with high regularity having the most confidence in his top producing playmakers. If this comes to fruition, the potential for Mike Evans to generate a multitude of targets and receptions could be extremely high in those first three weeks of the season.

Evans has an interesting resume in terms of patterns when it comes to his touchdown productivity and efficiency throughout his short NFL career. While his catch percentages have remained relatively consistent hovering around the 50%-55% marks, the touchdowns have hit a ceiling of 12 two times in his career which were achieved in seasons one and three. Seeing drop-offs in scores in years two and four pose to be somewhat of a conundrum to appropriately evaluate the reasons for these drawbacks. At this point the pattern would suggest that Evans is due for another rebound in generating high amounts of touchdowns coming off a season which saw only five endzone trips for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.