On the same night Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans grabbed his own piece of NFL history, his team had to deal with some very discouraging news about the NFL All-Pro as well.
That’s because Evans left a Week 7 Monday Night football game against the visiting Baltimore Ravens after he appeared to re-injure a nagging hamstring trying to catch a pass from Baker Mayfield in the end zone with 7:31 remaining in the second quarter.
Evans’ injury occurred after he’d already caught a touchdown pass from Mayfield, becoming just the 11th player in NFL history with 100 receiving touchdowns.
As Evans stretched out for the pass from Mayfield, he landed hard on the ground and immediately grabbed his hamstring then writhed on the ground in pain for several minutes.
Evans had been dealing with hamstring issues in the week leading up to the game, and the Buccaneers quickly ruled Evans out for the rest of the game before the end of the first half.
It ended up being just the first of two major injuries the Buccaneers suffered in the game — leading wide receiver Chris Godwin suffered a devastating, season-ending leg injury in the fourth quarter.
Evans’ Stats Have Been Behind Usual Pace
Evans is second on Tampa Bay in receiving with 25 receptions for 310 yards and 5 touchdowns while teammate and fellow veteran wide receiver Godwin leads the team with 43 receptions for 511 yards and 5 touchdowns.
After 3 games, Pewter Report pointed out that Evans, a 2-time NFL All-Pro, is on pace for a career-worst season with 56 receptions for 680 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns. Evans set the NFL record with his 10th consecutive 1,000-yard receiving season to start his career in 2023 and led the NFL with 13 receiving touchdowns.
He’s still on that same pace. That won’t change if he misses extended time with an injury and even for star wide receivers in the NFL, Evans has been one of the most durable of all time through his first 10 seasons as he’s missed just 8 games over his entire career and never more than 3 in a season.
The thing that felled Evans in 2019? A hamstring injury in Week 14 that landed him on injured reserve to close out the year.
Evans Trying to Tie NFL Legend’s Receiving Record
Evans has a chance to tie Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice’s NFL record with his 11th consecutive season with 1,000 receiving yards — something Evans acknowledged was on his mind headed into the season.
“I don’t, like, list off things, but that’s one of them that’s in the back of my mind because everybody’s talking about it,” Evans told NFL.com on July 24. “That’s been a record around for how many years now? Over 20 years? So, that’s something I definitely want to accomplish, and just help the team win ball games and be better than we were last year.”
The Buccaneers drafted Evans in the first round (No. 7 overall) in the 2014 NFL draft out of Texas A&M, and he already holds the NFL record with 10 consecutive seasons of 1,000-yard receiving seasons to start a career after putting up 79 receptions for 1,255 yards and an NFL-leading 13 touchdown catches in 2023.
Already one of the most popular players in franchise history, Evans signed a 2-year, $52 million contract with the Buccaneers in March 2024 — when the contract runs out in 2025 he will have accumulated $151.2 million in career earnings.
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Buccaneers Get Deflating Injury News on $52 Million NFL All-Pro WR