Mike Evans

One of the reasons why I was a lot lower than consensus on Mike Evans coming into the season was because of his volatility week in and week out. He obviously presents week-winning upside with his talent and skillset, but we knew the targets were going to go Godwin first and then potentially AB as well. That's irrelevant at this point though because he's on your roster and you now have to figure out what to expect from him week in and week out. This matchup screams that Evans should be a superb start, but we simply don't know what his target share is going to be in this one. He received a 13% team target share last week and saw players like Anthony Schwartz, Chester Rogers, KJ Osborn, Braxton Berrios, MVS, and Zach Pascal be more involved in their respective offenses than he was. Now, Evans is clearly the superior talent over all of those options, so he comes with 10x the amount of upside as those players do, but it's not exactly an encouraging sign moving forward. Evans can be viewed as a low-end WR2 this week that absolutely has the potential to finish as a top-5 option or he could fall outside the top-80 WRs again like he did against Dallas.

The only one of the Bucs' top three receivers to be left out of the fun against Dallas Thursday night, Evans had three catches for 24 yards on six targets. Evans might be the most fragile of the Buccaneers' receivers from a fantasy standpoint - which seems an odd thing to say about a dude who's strung together seven consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. But Evans barely cleared the 1,000-yard bar last year despite playing all 16 games, and only the highest TD total of his career (13) kept him in WR1 territory. What if Evans is the third-best receiver on his own team? That's not to say you should fade Evans this week. I expect him to create nightmares for Falcons CB Fabian Moreau, though it should be noted that Evans failed to score a touchdown in his two contests against Atlanta last season.

Evans caught just 3 of his 6 targets for only 24 yards, as he was the odd man out in the passing game. He also had only 11 targets, 9 receptions, and 156 yards with no touchdowns against the Falcons last year. He is still a WR3 in a great matchup, but Godwin and Brown appear to be the better Buccaneers options in this game.