Mike Evans put together a 2023 season so good it may have ended the debate on whether or not he's Hall of Fame-bound. His 79 catches and 1,255 yards were his most since 2018, his 15.9 yards per grab were his best since 2019 and his 13 touchdown receptions tied for the NFL lead. That helped prod the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to sign him to a new multi-year deal this past offseason, keeping him at the center of their offense, a spot he had occupied for a decade.
Evans showed no signs of slowing down in his 10th season, and if there were any such concerns about him heading into his 11th, he quickly put them to rest with five receptions for 61 yards and two touchdowns against Washington in Week One, with both scoring catches requiring a high degree of difficulty. In the process, he increased his career total to 96 touchdown catches, putting him on the verge of becoming the 11th player in NFL history to get to 100.
In the two games since, however, he has hauled in a total of five passes for 59 yards, without a touchdown. He had three receptions on six targets in the Bucs' Week Two win in Detroit, then two on just three targets in Sunday's loss to Denver. This is clearly not an intentional outcome; Baker Mayfield and the Bucs' offensive schemers and play-callers know that Evans is as dynamic a target as he has been for the past 10 years, and the office will do better when he's getting the ball.
Head Coach Todd Bowles didn't waste a lot of words making that point on Monday.
"We've got to get him involved more," said Bowles, simply.
There's little doubt the Bucs will attempt to do this moving forward. Evans and Mayfield quickly formed a connection last year in the quarterback's first season with the team and only twice in 19 games, playoffs included, was Evans targeted fewer than five times. Only three times did he produce fewer than 40 yards in a game, and he found the end zone in 12 of those 19 outings.
There are certainly contributing factors that have helped suppress Evans' production the past two weeks. The Buccaneers only ran 47 plays from scrimmage in Week Two against the Lions, and they were emphasizing the ground game in the fourth quarter while trying to hang on to a four-point lead. Against Denver, the Bucs' offensive possessions too often fizzled out quickly, leaving fewer footballs to spread around to all of Mayfield's targets.
"We had three three-and-outs in a row, and we pride ourselves on being way better than that," said Evans after the game. "We have to help the defense out and we didn't do that today. We had a couple of plays that we could have made and they would have changed the game around, and we didn't."
Also, Denver's secondary features one of the NFL's best cover corners in Pat Surtain II, and the Broncos are one of the few teams that routinely uses a specific corner to shadow the other team's number-one receiver. On Sunday, Surtain led a tremendous effort by the Denver secondary, providing tight coverage across the field on many snaps. Evans acknowledged in the week before the game that Surtain presented a stiff challenge, one to which he was looking forward. He echoed that sentiment after the game.
"Whenever he was on me, and we matched up, he made it tough," he said. "He made it real tough. Really great corner…there's a reason why he's one of the highest-paid of all time. Great player."
In addition – and in part due to that coverage – Mayfield was under constant pressure and frequently ended up having to go to the closer targets. That part of the field is more the province of Chris Godwin, Rachaad White and Cade Otton, who accounted for 18 of Mayfield's 32 targets. And when Evans did find some open space in the secondary, Mayfield was often already scrambling or getting rid of the ball.
"Sometimes it just goes like that," said Evans of the team's struggles against Denver overall. "We had a great week of preparation, I thought. Everybody was feeling good, starting to feel healthier, and [the Broncos] just came out and were more physical than us and were dialed in. They executed and we did not."
And every now and then it just goes like this for Evans or any great NFL receiver. Circumstances lead to a lull in production, and due to the high bar that receiver has set in his career, it's very noticeable. That can lead to a concerted effort to get that receiver the ball more often in succeeding games. It sounds like the Bucs may be making that sort of effort with Evans as the 2024 season progresses.
