Life as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer wide receiver has been a hectic ride these past few years. From catching passes from both Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jameis Winston in 2018 (the duo threw the most passing yards that season), to Winston first player in NFL history to throw 30 TD and 30 INT in a season while also throwing for over 5,000 yards to then having the GOAT Tom Brady come over in free agency for the upcoming 2020 season.
Mike Evans has been the top receiver in Tampa Bay since he was drafted in 2014 and has yet to have a season with less than 1,000 receiving yards. 2019 rolled around and there was some early camp buzz that Chris Godwin could be a stud that season and sure enough, he completed the season as the WR2 in PPR leagues while Evans finished the year at WR15.
But there’s a new sheriff in town which means there’s new expectations to be had about this offense. To dive into what those expectations should be I compared the season Evans and Godwin had in 2019 to how they would’ve performed with Brady’s stats the past few years. For example, Brady threw 4,057 yards in 2019 compared to Winston’s 5,109 yards which means Brady threw about 79.4% of Winston’s total. With that, I took 79.4% of Evans’ and Godwin’s receiving yards in 2019 and similar math to their other receiving stats to see how they would’ve performed with Brady as their QB. Check it out:
What stands out to me here is that both receivers come close to their 2019 finish is with Brady’s 2015 stats when he set his career-high in completions and had one of his best seasons of his career. Part of the fantasy success that both Godwin and Evans benefitted from in 2019 was being in the most pass-happy offense in the NFL, Winston led the league in attempts (626), completions (380) and yards (5,109).
Now, Brady is currently 42 years old and is playing on a new team in a new offense for the first time in his 20-year career. I wouldn’t bet on him supporting two top fantasy wide receiver seasons in 2020.
Godwin and Evans are currently both going as the WR6 and WR7, respectively, in mock drafts according to Fantasy Football Calculator. Could one of them finish that high this season? Absolutely! Brady was able to support Edelman as he finished 2019 as the WR7 in PPR. But between Godwin and Evans, which of the two is least likely to finish near their current ADP?
If I had to choose which Tampa WR gets left in the dust in 2020, it’s Evans. I think there’s no doubt that Evans is still a top receiver in the league, he caught eight TD passes and had 1,157 total receiving yards in just 13 games last season. He hasn’t had a season in his career with less than 1,000 yards and even finished as high as the WR3 in 2016, but can he still be that consistent fantasy stud with Brady at the helm?
Let’s look at the deep ball, a big part of Evans’ game. In 2019 he finished the season with the second-most air yards (1,875), the fourth-highest average target distance (15.9) and had 30 targets of 20+ yards for the fourth-most in the league. That’s a lot of distance for the ball to travel getting to Evans, can Brady produce that much?
In 2019, Winston produced the absolute most air yards with 6,486 and led the league in deep throw attempts (passes 20 yards or more) with 113. The closest Brady has gotten to that total in the past ten years was in 2012 when he had 5,477 air yards while not attempting more than 70 deep passes in the past two seasons. The other side of that, though, is that Brady had a 43% completion rate on passes of 20 or more yards while Winston was down at 36.3%. How much do we expect Brady to throw the ball deep in 2020? Certainly not as much as Winston in 2019.
Then we look at Evans’ TD percentage, another big part of his game since he’s one of the tallest receivers in the league at 6’5. He’s currently tied with Odell Beckham Jr. for the 9th-most TDs by active players on current rosters with 48 and has a career TD percentage of 10.4%.
Now I haven’t even mentioned the Buccaneers’ acquisition of TE Rob Gronkowski, one of Brady’s favorite weapons. In his career, Gronkowski has the third-most TDs by a tight end (78) and is Brady’s leading TD receiver by double the next man (Randy Moss, 39 TDs). So how exactly will Gronk fit into this Bucs offense?
If I had to guess, he’ll be eating into Evans’ TD production. In his time with the Patriots Gronk averaged 26.51% of the teams’ TD share, his highest being in 2011 when he held 43.6% of the teams’ share with his 17 TDs and his lowest in 2016 with 9.38% when he only played eight games. Similarly, Evans has averaged 28.74% of the Buccaneers’ TD share with a max of 57.15% his rookie year in 2014 and his lowest was 13.64% in 2015.
Crazy stat of the article: if you include the 2019 Patriots TDs, a season in which Gronkowski was retired, he still holds 24.46% of the teams’ TDs from 2011-2019.
Let’s step out of the end zone and look at targets within the ten-yard line, or the “ten-zone.” Mike Evans was targeted 10 times inside the ten-zone in 2019 for 26.3% of the Buccaneers’ team total. Since he entered the league in 2014, Evans has averaged 24.74% of the teams’ ten-zone targets. Gronk, in the same time period, averages 17.38% of the Patriots ten-zone targets.
So let’s step back and look at all of this. Mike Evans and Chris Godwin had top-20 fantasy finishes in 2019 and a large part of that was the Buccaneers being the most pass-happy team in the NFL and Jameis Winston having a very fantasy-friendly season.
Both Evans and Godwin are being drafted as top-ten WRs in fantasy drafts currently and I don’t believe the change of scheme that comes with Tom Brady can support both players at the caliber that’s expected. If one of them were to see a drop in production, I believe it’s Mike Evans.
Evans is an incredibly effective deep receiver and end zone target and has been for most of his career. Brady’s lack of deep-throws in the later years of his career could drop Evans’ production down the field.
Then we add Rob Gronkowski to the mix and now we see a serious threat to Evans’ TD production. Gronkowski was Brady’s favorite end zone target by a long shot in New England, why would that stop in Tampa Bay?
I’m not saying don’t draft Mike Evans, he could still have a great fantasy season! I just think if you’re deciding between Godwin and Evans, Godwin has a much better chance at matching last season’s WR2 finish.
