Buccaneers' Mike Evans Reflects on His Career Through 10 Seasons of Reaching 1,000 Yards

Tampa Bay Buccaneers' wide receiver Mike Evans has quietly become one of the all-time greats as he completed his tenth straight season with 1,000 receiving yards Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.

Evans hasn't always been talked about as the "best WR in the league", but has consistently shown that he deserves to be in the conversation. In a much-needed big performance, Evans was able to post seven catches for 162 yards and a touchdown in their divisional matchup that resulted in a win and kept the Buccaneers in the race to win the NFC South.

Following the jaw-dropping performance, Evans reflected on his career and the history that is in his sights.

“Happy we got the win, most importantly. I’m happy with the record, obviously. I had a lot of great quarterbacks and offensive coordinators who believed in me, so I appreciate them. Hopefully, I can keep that streak going, however long my career goes.”

Evans continued to elaborate that everyone on the sidelines knew once he reached the 1,000-yard milestone.

“Yeah, we all knew. Everybody was talking about it on the sideline. Nowadays, you see the stats everywhere. So, yeah, we knew.”

Mike Evans is only one 1,000-yard season away from tying the great Jerry Rice for most consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons and will have a few more years of doing so to catch the record that Rice also has a total of 1,000-yard seasons with 14 of them, but it is of no surprise to many that Evans that he is deserving of becoming a future first-ballot Hall of Famer. Evans expanded on putting his names amongst the all-time greats.

“It seems surreal at times, but you know I’m in the moment. So maybe when I’m long gone from the game I’ll look back and really think about what I’ve done.”

“That’s not for me to decide. I know that I am a Hall of Fame-caliber player. Like, I’ve seen all the guys that have played – all the guys that are in the Hall of Fame – I know what I can do, but my career’s not over yet. So, that’s something to think about in the future.”

Evans is certainly one of the all-time greats in Buccaneers' history and likely will eventually make the team's Ring of Honor, but the question will still be if his career accomplishments will be enough to earn him a spot in Canton.

The answer is yes, they should.

Not only is Evans achieving things that haven't been achieved in years, but the level of consistency that he plays at along with winning a Super Bowl back in 2020 should greatly influence the powers that be to enshrine him whenever that time may come.