Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Improving Mike Evans’s red zone numbers

Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans is a savage. What other word better describes a 6’5″, 231-pound tatted up physical beast who runs a 4.53 forty with long arms to match a 37-inch vertical?

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Yet, for as strong and physically imposing as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers second-best player on offense is, Mike Evans put up woeful numbers in the end zone as a sophomore player. You’d think that a big guy with 74 catches, over 1,200 yards, and 16.3 yards per reception as his team’s primary target would haul in more than three touchdowns. But, alas, Evans was topped by running back Charles Sims and Austin Seferian-Jenkins, who was healthy for less than half of the season, in the TD department.

The drop-off is difficult to explain. Beyond the fact that Evans is the type of me-first, ball-hungry wideout capable of boxing out defenders draped on him at the catch point, he was a wildly successful scorer as a rookie with 12 touchdowns to his name.

In fact, Evans was by far the Buccaneers least-successful player in the red zone last season, based on numbers provided by Pro-Football Reference. Rookie quarterback Jameis Winston, who threw just one interception in that critical area of the field last year, looked towards Evans a team-high 17 times in these situations, and the former Texas A&M superstar returned just three receptions. That’s a 17.6% catch rate, and even Harry Douglas would cringe at that clip.

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The fact that Winston’s completion percentage in the red zone was the fourth-worst among starting QBs didn’t do Evans any favors, but who is to blame? Did Evans truly underperform in this area of the field? Does Winston need to trust him more? Should Dirk Koetter do a better job of calling plays for him?

Interestingly enough, the Buccaneers aren’t the only NFC South team that has problems with giving their big, physically gifted superstar receiver sufficient scores. You may think Julio Jones‘s team-leading eight TD receptions for the Atlanta Falcons were impressive last year, but, remember, the unquestioned top-five wideout also hauled in 136 passes on a whopping 203 targets. Furthermore, Jones had just six touchdowns in 2014, and he also caught more than 100 balls that season.

That said, Jones’s red zone catch rate (59.1%) wasn’t rock-bottom, and that’s where Evans was at in 2015. Red zone stats have minuscule sample sizes that make it nearly impossible to draw any real conclusions from the data, so I’ll toss in one thought-provoking and mildly entertaining anecdote from this past season.

That’s the play. I’ll let Winston tell the story with a tip of the cap to Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds.

"“I’m going to do verbatim, and this is the story that everybody needs to talk about,” Winston said. “I go in the huddle after the long drive and guys are tired. I said, ‘Who wants a touchdown?’ I smiled and said, ‘Who wants a touchdown?’ Mike smiled and said, ‘Me, me, me!’ I said, ‘All right, you’re going to get it.’ Honest to God truth.”"

It’s not a question of hunger, as you can see above. It’s not a question of talent, because Evans dominated in the red zone in college and as a rookie.

Because Dirk Koetter said that he wants Winston-Evans to be “more lethal”, as per the Tampa Bay Times’s Greg Auman, you might be inclined to think that it’s a chemistry issue. And then there’s this piece in which a writer calls Evans a “Crybaby” and speculates that Winston called him out for a “lack of commitment”.

Recently, Evans spoke about how he and his rising star quarterback are building chemistry this offseason, and while the following quote is generic, it’s a reminder that there’s no real basis for over-the-top speculation. Quote via BucsBlitz.com’s Drew Forest:

"“[Jameis’] second year going into the offense, you know it’s going to be great. I hope we do great things,” Evans said. “He’s just being more of a leader than ever, so that’s going to be great for us in the long run.”"

If Winston didn’t trust Evans, why would he throw him the ball in a game-winning situation with all the chips on the table? Why would he listen to him in the huddle and run towards the spot where Evans’s route would end? Why would he even bother telling this story to cast Evans in a good light?

Look, there are two types of chemistry. The first type is whether or not two players like each other, and I am willing to bet that this is what these two young men have. If they don’t, then they can at least do a darn good job of faking it in order to win football games.

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The other type of chemistry is the Joe Montana and Jerry Rice or Tom Brady and Julian Edelman stuff. You know, the type of on-field understanding that takes time; time that a rookie quarterback doesn’t quite have to work with their star receiver in their rookie offseason. This offseason is huge for this to develop, and even if an innate Aaron Rodgers to Jordy Nelson hook-up isn’t in the cards in 2016, I have confidence that Winston and Evans will be on the same page more often, particularly in the red zone.