Greatest Trio Of Receivers? Bucs No. 8
November 21st, 2021
Among elite.
Now this is a fun list.
Aaron Schatz, the head honcho over at Football Outsiders, decided to try to come up with the top wide receivers of all times using all sorts of mathematical hopscotch routines. You can read about it here from BSPN.
Schatz came up with the top-12 receiving trios in NFL history. He has this year’s Bucs at No. 8.
To get these numbers, we prorated the Buccaneers receivers to 16 games each to match past player seasons. For [Antonio] Brown, we prorated him as if he will come back next week … so that’s 12 games instead of 16. If we prorated Brown’s 2021 numbers to a full 16 games, the Buccaneers would rank second on this list instead of eighth. But then we would need to prorate everybody to a 16-game season and other historical teams would leap ahead of the Bucs.
What’s remarkable about the Buccaneers is the equality between their three receivers. Based on DVOA, which measures value per play while DYAR measures total value, all three Buccaneers receivers rank in the top 20 for this season’s wideouts.
Joe would have thought last year’s group may have been higher. But, apparently, math.
Joe hollered through the offseason and summer that the Bucs had a passing attack that would be one of the best in NFL history and something Bucs fans may never see again.
It seems Joe’s eyeball test wasn’t far off.
Another interesting element to this list by Schatz: Of the top-12 receiving trios in NFL history, Bucs Super Bowl-winning coach Bucco Bruce Arians had a hand in two of them. This year’s Bucs and the 2015 Cardinals, which was ranked No. 2.
November 21st, 2021 at 7:34 am
ESPN won’t get a single penny from me, so I’m going to guess that the 1998 Viking’s wideouts were deservedly ranked higher than our guys. Jerry Rice was so good that he and two bums off the street could probably fill up the top five.
November 21st, 2021 at 8:05 am
Buczilla, that Vikings team was so nasty. But so fun to watch. I was at Ray Jay that Sunday we gave them their only regular season loss. By far one of my favorite games I’ve been to.
November 21st, 2021 at 8:44 am
Jerry Rice on the Vikings???
98 Vikings had Moss, Carter and Reed as their “trio” of WRs
Formidable for sure – Moss was a rookie and Chris Carter was 33 and both put up great #s – especially TDs. Moss and Carter combined for 147 catches, 2324 yards and 31 TDs between the 2 of them. Jake Reed had 474 yards and 4 TDs.
The 2021 Bucs WRs will not likely get to 35 TDs – even in 17 games with Brown missing all these games and Gronk being a favorite target of Brady in the Red Zone. But surpassing the # of catches and yards from the Vikings WRs that year is likely if Brown gets back on the field anytime soon and the Bucs offense as a whole starts paying up to its 40+ points per game potential.
November 21st, 2021 at 8:46 am
playing up to…..
Need to get that “edit’ button option installed Joe…..
November 21st, 2021 at 10:03 am
Imagine if we threw the ball to our top three instead of our #5 & #6
November 21st, 2021 at 10:15 am
How about Rice,Owen’s, Taylor? Raiders had Rice, Tim Brown and not sure who #3 was. Add Gronk to the mix, is there a better foursome?
November 21st, 2021 at 10:36 am
Too bad AB can’t get in the field because of his ankle and shenanigans.
November 21st, 2021 at 10:42 am
Imagine if Brady actually threw the ball to Evans more than 3x per game.
November 21st, 2021 at 10:43 am
I don’t know about all time best, but with AB on the field with Evans and Godwin, we are the best in the NFL right now, at the receiver position.
November 21st, 2021 at 11:17 am
Watched replays of Saints game this year at the 4th Quarter ( 1min.44sec.left ). Evans beat Lattimore deep and if he kept running the pass was in his lap, instead he saw the safety closing to clock him and he stopped running. Next play Brady forced the pass to Godwin and was picked. Evans was open on this play in the middle of the field, however a QB isn’t going to throw to a receiver who showed no heart on the play before. AB can cut like Wes Welker and Edelman on the short routes to get open and also beat coverage on deep routes. AB and Gronk are clutch in big moments.
November 21st, 2021 at 11:25 am
Unbelievable, the most recent nexgen stats are show the percentage that Brady completes a successful pass to Evan’s is 30.6% not good, if I’m reading that right, that means it is taking longer to complete it. The stats show Brady is taking 3.2 seconds to release the ball versus last year 2.8 seconds. Throwing to Evan’s the average ball flight time is 2.4 seconds. I guess we can assume the release time has increased due to the loss of AB & Gronk and the other receivers are not getting open as quickly. Obviously this is skewed some because of Darden & Johnsons lack of experience.
November 21st, 2021 at 11:53 am
Scooter, I remember that play. Evans alligator armed it and didn’t attempt to go up for the ball. However, that was his fourth target of the game, Mike needs to be involved early and often. Every other teams number one gets 8-12 targets a game. There’s a lot of blame to go around, whatever the deal is it needs to be fixed.
Maybe Tom and Mike need to sit down one on one and have a man to man talk. There’s no reason when all are healthy that Evans, Godwin, Brown don’t each have at least seven targets. That would only be 21 attempts leaving another 15-20 for backs, TEs and other WRs.
November 21st, 2021 at 1:28 pm
Jp09, I would consider Evan’s the #3 if Brown is playing. Offensive football 101, run or screen or underneath passes bring the D up then go deep. Evan’s is a mid range deep receiver, his routes take time and his passes need to be setup. DR, where are you when I need you to back this up?
November 21st, 2021 at 1:51 pm
I’d actually consider all three of them 1s , Mike has 7 straight 1k seasons. Browns history speaks for itself and when healthy he’s unstoppable same with Godwin. Any way you want to label them they should all be getting at least 7 targets a game even if all three are playing
November 21st, 2021 at 2:39 pm
Are you sure about the 36% number?
I see he has 41 catches on 66 targets this year… which would be closer to 62%.
Either way, I just see so many plays where he is running wide open. And going back to last year, every time they get him involved early on, our offense seems to roll and we win. Would like to see more, especially when we face terrible secondaries like the one Washington had.
Just a huge waste of opportunity last week. The #1 seed is virtually impossible now.
November 21st, 2021 at 2:53 pm
What “unbelievable says” said No way we get #1 seed lucky if third but looking likely #4 if we can win division. Saints losing today we need win tomorrow. One game at a time.#GoBucs
November 21st, 2021 at 2:56 pm
Packers getting crushed by the Vikings right now, 1st place isn’t out of reach yet. There’s still 8 games for us, a lot of time left
November 21st, 2021 at 3:01 pm
@BigPoppaBuc
Oh damn, that must have been awesome man!
November 22nd, 2021 at 12:35 am
People are now coming up with stats on Mike Evans to suggest he nly catches 32 percent of his targets ?
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA
Right.
Go find yourselves a deeper hole to burble incoherent.
November 22nd, 2021 at 2:11 am
@Swampbuc
The Joe’s have a saying about stats that currently eludes me, but I find it better for my mental health to ignore stuff that’s too far outside our reality. Pro Football Reference has Mike at 62.1% for the year, so I’m going to go with that one.
November 22nd, 2021 at 9:59 am
It’s not his reception % it’s the % the pass would be completed.