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Evans is playing like the ‘Next One’
This is how it works when you’re on fire like Bucs rookie receiver Mike Evans is on fire. You see something, you say something, you do something. You make a touchdown. Another one. You dominate. You do a lot of that.
It was the third quarter of Sunday afternoon’s easy — yes, easy — Bucs win over Washington to snap a five-game losing streak. Evans, the hottest receiver in football the past three weeks, was on his way to seven more catches, a career-high 209 yards and two more scores.
Anyway, Evans sees a hole in Washington’s coverage. He mentions it to Bucs quarterback Josh McCown. Thing is, Evans mentions it as he’s in motion, running past McCown, who is under center, just before the ball is snapped. Evans: “Josh, just throw it up.” McCown: “Yeah, do that, do that, do that.”
Evans blew by the cornerback. The safety didn’t get over. Thirty-six yards. Touchdown. Poetry in motion — even before the play. This is how it works when you’re on fire like Mike Evans is on fire, when you are breaking out, when you have 21 catches and five touchdowns your past three games. You make it up as you go along. You make like you’re back on the playground, or at Texas A&M, playing catch with your friend Johnny Football.
The Bucs had 329 yards of offense Sunday. Evans had 209. He was the Bucs offense. He owned Washington. “I feel like I’m in college again,” Evans said. “You know, just playing fast, having fun out there.”
You make it up as you go along and you make history. You end up in the same sentence with your idol. You floor your teammates. “I’ve played with A.J. (Green),” Bucs offensive lineman Anthony Collins said. “I’ve played with Chad (Johnson). I’ve played with Terrell (Owens). Mike will be the next one.”
Sunday, at 21 years, three months old, Evans became the youngest player with 200 receiving yards in a game. He’s the first rookie receiver to have at least 200 yards and two touchdowns in a regulation game since Arizona’s Anquan Boldin in 2003.
“I was there that day Anquan did that,” said McCown, who was Boldin’s teammate in 2003. “I remember sitting there. I think Anquan caught like one ball in the preseason. It was Opening Day. I was thinking, ‘Gee, this guy, we’ve got something special.’ ”
McCown is thinking that all over again. Maybe best of all for Evans, he became the first rookie receiver to have at least 100 yards receiving and at least one touchdown in three consecutive games since 1998: Randy Moss. “It’s great,” Evans said. “Randy Moss is my favorite receiver. I just watched his “30 for 30” last night. It’s great being mentioned in the same caliber as him. But the win is more important than anything.”
The Bucs whiffed on a lot on acquisitions in the offseason. But Evans, the team’s first-round pick, looks like a gusher. He can take over games. He was a load in college, big, tall, strong, but draft experts wondered about his speed. Evans didn’t wonder about his speed, or his style.
“I told people at the combine I pattern my game after Brandon Marshall, being a big, physical guy like that, because I’m not as fast as Randy (Moss),” Evans said. “But watching him, it gives me a lot of hope, the swagger he plays with, he has fun with the game. I try to do that, model that. ... Yeah, I try to. Talk a little smack here and there. After I score, have fun, things like that.”
Evans again flashed Moss’ patented hand gestures to illustrate slicing through a defense after his second touchdown Sunday, in the fourth quarter, 56 yards, after he was left alone with Washington linebacker Perry Riley Jr. It was no contest. No contests happen a lot when you’re on fire like Mike Evans is on fire. “I had a couple of those in college,” Evans said. “It feels like getting hot in basketball.”
He was a hoops star in high school in Texas. Now he’s hanging on the rim of NFL stardom. Not even the sky seems the limit. Josh, just throw it up.
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