One could fashion a very spirited and lengthy debate as to who deserves to be crowned the number-one player in Tampa Bay Buccaneers history, but there's little room for argument as to who is at the top of the list of offensive players. Tom Brady may be the greatest overall player ever to spend time with the Buccaneers, Tristan Wirfs is very rapidly make his way up the list and Mike Alstott is understandably one of the most popular figures in the first half-century of Tampa Bay football, but no one can fully match Mike Evans' resume. And he's not done yet.
Since 1976, more than 1,200 players have worn the Tampa Bay uniform during the regular season, each arriving in his own unique way and each leaving their mark on the club's legacy. This milestone season, we're honoring that impact by naming the Top 50 Players in Buccaneers history. That list was shaped by fan voting throughout the offseason, alongside input from Tampa Bay media and team representatives. And now it is being unveiled.
The Top 50 list has been revealed over the course of 10 days, concluding on Thursday night with the players who landed in spots 10 to 1. We've recruited some of the players who made the list to help us share their own stories and celebrate their teammates and predecessors in a series of breakdown videos. Click here to watch the video reveal of the numbers 30-21. We covered the first five players on that list in one post and are now devoting dedicated stories to each player who landed in the top five. At this point, any of these players could have credibly been chosen as the number-one Buccaneer of all time, including our current subject who came at #4.
4. WR Mike Evans, 2014-Present
At one point, Mark Carrier was the leading pass-catcher in team history, Jimmie Giles had the most touchdown catches, Alstott had the most total trips to the end zone for any Buccaneer and Martin Gramatica was the franchise's all-time scoring mark. Then Mike Evans came along and obliterated all of those standards, plus many more, to leave his name boldly imprinted all over the team's record book.
It all started when the Buccaneers made Evans the seventh-overall pick in the 2014 draft and he immediately posted a 1,051-yard season while breaking the team's single-season record with 12 touchdowns. After that, recording 1,000-yard receiving seasons became his calling card, as he has topped that mark in each of his 11 seasons. He is the first player in league history to start a career with 11 straight 1,000-yard receiving seasons (or even seven straight, for that matter) and his streak ties Jerry Rice for the longest at any point in a player's career. Only Rice, with 14, has more total 1,000-yard receiving seasons.
If his name hadn't become synonymous with those 1,000-yard campaigns, he might best be known for finding the end zone. With six double-digit touchdown seasons on his record, he now has a total of 106, all but one of which came on receptions. Those 105 career touchdown catches ranks ninth in NFL history and one more double-digit campaign could move him as high as seventh on the list by the end of the 2025 season.
Starting at the top, Evans is the first player to show up on our Top 50 list who is not in the Hall of Fame, but that's essentially a matter of timing. He is widely expected to join his fellow Buccaneers in Canton, quite possibly as a first-ballot selection and finally give Tampa Bay's offensive ranks some representation in the Hall.
Here are the categories in which Evans is the Buccaneers' career or single-season record holder, often by large margins:
- Total touchdowns, 106…the second player on the list has 71
- Career points scored, 644…next is 592
- Career receptions, 836…next is 579
- Career receiving yards, 12,864…next is 7,266
- 100-yard receiving games (playoffs included), 42…next is 23
- Single-season touchdowns, 14…next is 13 (by Evans)
- Single-season receiving yards, 1,524…next is 1,422
Evans' 12,864 career receiving yards are more than the next two players on the list (Chris Godwin and Mark Carrier) combined. While he doesn't currently own the team record for most receiving yards in a single game, he is the only player in team history to crack 200 yards on more than one occasion. He owns five of the top single-season touchdown totals in franchise history. He has now tied Mike Alstott with six Pro Bowl appearances, the most by an offensive player in team history and he's been a second-team All-Pro selection twice. There is little doubt that Evans deserve to be listed among the top five players in Buccaneers history; the only question is if he will rank even higher by the time he hangs up his cleats.
