If there is one thing you can guarantee about the beginning period of NFL training camps, it's that there will be a ton of reports about players that have reported in the best shape of their lives. Some of them will have packed on 15 pounds of muscle, while others will have lost 15 pounds of fat. (It's always 15 pounds.) We call this #MUSCLEWATCH.
In 2016, we here are CBSSports.com are proud to welcome Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans to #MUSCLEWATCH. Here's Evans on Sirius XM NFL Radio (per JoeBucsFan.com with a tip of the hat to Pro Football Talk), describing his playing weight:
"I played heavier my first two years, around 235, 240 [pounds], and now I'm between 220 and 225. That's helped me run more, longer and faster."
Wouldn't you know it, Evans lost right around 15 pounds this offseason. Incredible stuff.
Evans' physicality is a big part of his game and there's no way to know if he'll retain it after dropping the weight, but being able to run more, longer and faster is definitely something that will help him get open in areas of the field where Jameis Winston can find him. It'll be incumbent on Evans to actually catch the ball once he is open, though.
He caught only 50.0 percent of the passes thrown his way last season, a drop-off of 5.7 percent from his rookie year. Evans' 50.0 percent catch rate was the worst figure among the 42 players targeted with at least 100 passes in 2015, and his career mark of 52.6 percent is second-worst among the 40 players targeted at least 200 times over the last two years combined.
The only player with a lower catch rate is Evans' teammate Vincent Jackson (50.5 percent). Evans has 19 drops in those two seasons, though, compared to only eight for Jackson. He's being thrown catchable passes a lot more often, and hauling them in at a rate that is not much greater. That, more so than his playing weight, is something that really needs to be corrected.
