Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Mike Evans ready for another big game?

Tampa Bay Buccaneers star wide receiver Mike Evans caught eight passes for 150 yards against a burn-prone New York Giants secondary a couple of weeks ago, and he followed that up with another eighth-catch performance against an NFC South squad, spotting 126 on the Dallas Cowboys secondary in a last-gasp victory.

Evans, who has been a bona fide star ever since coming into the league last year as a top-ten pick out of Texas A&M, has clearly benefited in the importance department from Austin Seferian-Jenkins‘s and Vincent Jackson‘s absences. This week, Jackson, as per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, is expected to return, but ASJ will likely be out.

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Even with Jackson set to return to the lineup as another talented member of the Buccaneers offense, Evans’s spot at the top of the totem pole won’t drop. Less targets figure to be on the way for Evans with V-Jax clamoring for looks from standout rookie signal-caller Jameis Winston, but it’s also true that the second-year star will benefit from the veteran’s return to the lineup.

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With Jackson taking some attention away from Evans, the latter receiver could have more room to run against an Eagles defense that has notoriously struggled against No. 1 receivers. They do an excellent job of defending the run, have one of the league’s best safety tandems, boast some beastly defensive linemen, and have linebackers who have done an elite job of defending tight ends and running backs in the passing game.

But their weakness is the fact that they struggle against star wideouts, and with an average of 82.8 yards per game, Evans is one of the biggest stars at the position. Byron Maxwell may be 6’1″, but Evans is a 6’5″ bully at the wide receiver position. More importantly for the Buccaneers wide receiver, Maxwell hasn’t been at his best this season.

That said, it is important to make it clear that Maxwell has turned things around over the last few weeks, and he is no longer the burn-prone, seemingly overpaid laughingstock he was as the weak link of the Eagles defense through the first month of the regular season. Lately, he’s been about par for the course, so Evans probably won’t be able to dog-walk him.

Even with this caveat noted, wide receivers still can have strong days against the Eagles secondary. For example, Jarvis Landry had seven catches for the Miami Dolphins last week, and the still-underrated Rishard Matthews turned five targets into five receptions for 93 yards, though most of it was due to one play with major YAC after catching a pass in Maxwell’s coverage.

The previous week, Dez Bryant had a coming-out game against the Eagles with 104 receiving yards, most of them coming against No. 2 corner Nolan Carroll, who is also 6’1″.

Oct 11, 2015; Tampa, FL, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans (13) waits for a pass during the second quarter of an NFL football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

Evans doesn’t have the easiest matchup on tap with the way the Eagles have been shoring up their only real weakness on defense, but the Eagles do allow the seventh-most touchdowns to wide receivers and the seventh-most fantasy points per game to wideouts.

This is a fully legitimate top-ten defense and top-ten pass defense, but the 98.4 yards per game they allow to No. 1 receivers has me intrigued.

Odell Beckham Jr. has three straight games with over 100 receiving yards, and I think Evans is on pace to notch the same streak in today’s 1:00 p.m. ET game against Philly.

Jackson might not receive as many targets in his first game back from a multi-week injury, making his role as a decoy all the more intriguing for Evans’s fantasy purposes.

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What worries me about this matchup is the fact that the Eagles do an excellent job of limiting big plays with just 10.6 yards per completion allowed, whereas Evans’s 16.6 YPR average shows just how important vertical plays are to his numbers.

Winston is coming off of three straight lousy performances (sub-60% completion percentages, just one TD) against bad defenses, but maybe that’s a net positive for Evans, considering the numbers he put up without the running game clicking, without Winston playing well, and bereft of other weapons to take pressure off of him.