It has been a rough week for fans of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. To open free agency, franchise legendary wide receiver Mike Eavns decided to leave for greener pastures by signing with the San Francisco 49ers. This has left a massive hole in the hearts of fans.
It also left a good sized hole in the Bucs offense. With Evans gone, the team doesn’t really have a true X receiver. No one who brings the size on the outside or who can threaten defenses deep down the field.
Now comes the impossible task for general manager Jason Licht. Trying to replace the greatest offensive player in franchise history. At least, what the current version of that man brought to the field.
Of course, no one can replace what Evans meant to Bucs fans. The memories he created, the charity he did within the community. To quote the Sandlot, “heros are remembered, but legends never die”. The same can be said of Mike Evans legacy with the Buccaneers.
Nonetheless, life keeps moving forward. Finding a similar prototype to Evans becomes more of a priority. In that way, the Buccaneers need to find the next Mike Evans.
That man might come from an unlikely place. Not the high flying SEC or the Big 12, but rather I turn my attention to the Sun Belt conference. There you would find Georgia State wide receiver Ted Hurst.
Measuring in at 6‘4 and 206 lbs, has all the size the the Bucs need. He’s not quite the 231 lbs that Evans weighed in at for his combine, but that just speaks to what a freak talent that Evans was. In the here and now, Hurst has very good size to work with for a wide receiver.
He uses this size to his full advantage. Hurst had 15 touchdowns over the last two seasons. That’s a pretty good number for an offense that only had 43 total passing touchdowns in that time (35% of receiving touchdowns). But that is the beauty of being a 6 ‘4 receiver who can absolutely go up and get the ball.
However, it’s not just the size that the Buccaneers are losing with Evans. It’s also the big play ability and the vertical element that he brings to an offense. You can replace that with Hurst as well.
In terms of speed testing, not many were more impressive at the combine than Hurst. He ran a 4.42 40 yard dash which is an impressive number regardless of size. Then when you factor in how much bigger he is than most of his peers then it becomes that much more impressive.
This is a large part of why he has had basically ⅓ of his teams entire receiving yard total over the last two years. The big play is always on the table with Hurst. Just like we saw with Evans, his long strides and catch radius make him very difficult to defend down the field.
Hurst has the ability to play off his speed well. He can snap off a route, which makes him potentially dangerous on a lot of the comeback type of routes which require a receiver to stop on a dime. This is an element to his game that he is still mastering, but the ability to do that is there, just like it was with Evans.
It’s worth emphasizing that no one should expect Hurst to be the caliber of player that Evans was. If you think a mid round pick is going to be similar to a hall of famer in terms of what his career looks like, then that should probably be a top five pick. Don’t expect anyone in this class to be as good as Mike Evans was over his career.
However, in terms of style this could be the Buccaneers next Mike Evans. The size, the speed, the ability to stop and come back to the ball are all things that are reminiscent of what we have seen over the last twelve years. If Hurst can bring 65% of the production of what the Bucs have lost in Evans then this would be an excellent pick around the third round of the draft.
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