The realization came to Mike Evans when he was being interviewed in the locker room shortly after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 33-16 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. It was an opportunity lost.
Earlier in the afternoon, Evans had started the Buccaneers' 445-yard offensive explosion with a two-yard touchdown reception on the game's opening drive. It was the 97th scoring catch of his illustrious career, moving him into 12th place in NFL history in that category and also, stunningly, making him the leading scorer in franchise history. He now has 596 career points, four more than kicker Martin Gramatica's 592, and that makes him one of only three non-kickers to be a team's all-time leading scorer. The other two are Hall of Famers Emmitt Smith for Dallas and Jerry Rice for San Francisco.
That's kind of a big deal. Maybe worth holding onto the specific football he caught to claim that record.
"I should have kept the ball," said Evans in a moment of clarity. "Dang! I did not keep the ball. I gave it away."
Evans had a lot of milestone touchdowns, and he has a tendency to give the football away to a Bucs fan in the crowd. He may or may not get this one back, but he won't have to give up his new record. Already Tampa Bay's all-time leader in nearly every receiving category, he's also now more prolific as a scorer than all the kickers the team has employed.
"Yeah, I knew I was approaching it," Evans said of his latest mileston. "I don't know…I've been blessed. It's amazing that I'm here now. I feel like I was just a rookie trying to figure things out, and now I'm the all-time leading scorer in a great franchise's history. It means the world."
The game-opening touchdown pass was the 16th that Baker Mayfield has thrown to Evans in their 21 regular-season games together. Mayfield was honored to be part of the franchise-altering moment.
"That's big-time for Mike," said Mayfield. "That's huge. Sometimes you take it for granted the career that Mike has had, and continues to have. He's a Hall-of-Famer, no doubt. That's a huge honor for him, and the fact that we get to play with him, it's pretty special. Don't take it for granted. That's why we tried to get him started earlier today, get him going, get one of our best players the ball early on so he catches fire. He did that…special player."
Evans scored on one of his signature plays, running a route in the back of the end zone to the left corner and catching a lob over the shoulder and over a defender. It was a play the Buccaneers thought might be available if they could get near the goal line against the Eagles' defense.
"I had man-to-man on the safety and got physical at the top of the route and he threw me the ball," said Evans. "We saw how they played it. They hadn't switched it up no matter who they were playing. They were playing man-to-man down there, not much help in the goal-line area."
Mayfield threw to Evans on the first play of the game for an eight-yard game. He eventually targeted Evans 14 times, resulting in eight completions for 94 yards. The Bucs would find the end zone on their second possession as they rushed out to a 24-0 lead the Eagles couldn't overcome.
"We emphasized starting fast, helping our defense out, putting together drives," said Evans. [We] had a great week of preparation, a lot of guys stepped up and made plays that helped with the outcome."
