Friday Film Room: Mike Evans

We have a running joke on my podcast. Whenever a wide receiver has problems catching balls that are catchable, we say he has duck hands. The reasons are random and strange: Giants tight end Larry Donnell—a serial dropper of the football—had a particularly frustrating game early this year, and instead of using the old cliché that he has cinderblocks for hands, I hear myself say he had "wooden duck hands." (Often I do not know why I say the things I say.) From there, we began referring to any receiver with drop problems as belonging to the Duck Hands Family. Jordan Matthews became Duck Hands Junior. Ted Ginn, Jr., became Ted Duck, Jr. Brandon LaFell became Uncle Duck. And Mike Evans? He is Duck Tats.

Why? Evans currently leads the NFL in its official drops category. You should feel free to watch these next several GIFs while listening to Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture."

You know what? Drops notwithstanding, Duck Tats is one hell of a receiving prospect, and he's pretty dang good for fantasy right now.

As we head into championship week for fantasy football, Evans should be in all starting lineups. That's been my opinion about Evans from about Week 7 forward; it wasn't a particularly popular opinion over the past month leading up to last Thursday night's contest in St. Louis, but it's gotten more palatable since Evans caught nine passes for 157 yards in that game.

Evans may have duck hands, but in his second season he's also one of the foremost freaks at his position. The fact that fellow Buccaneers receiver Vincent Jackson will miss his second straight contest and fourth of the season only helps Duck Tats' cause: Evans has averaged 120 receiving yards in games V-Jax has missed.

Evans is 6'5" and 231 pounds. Wide receivers just don't usually come that big. That's Calvin Johnson–sized. No, Evans doesn't run like Megatron did at age 22, but he's still fast. He might be a slightly faster Plaxico Burress, or a significantly faster Kelvin Benjamin. Heck, I think a young Brandon Marshall is a good analog for Evans, and that's high praise, indeed.

Why am I so sanguine about a drop-meister like Evans? Because I see multiple ways he can dominate a defense. As a red-zone weapon, he's well nigh unstoppable if Jameis Winston throws an accurate pass and Evans' inner Duck Tats stays hidden:

There's not much else Eagles corner Nolan Carroll can do here. He anticipates Evans running a pretty simple little fade. He gets as physical as possible with him, trying to bump him (some might say hold him) at the line; in fact, since this play was snapped from the Philly 4, Carroll is within the five-yard bump area for most of the play, and he doesn't get cheated on the hand-fighting. Carroll pretty much gets his hand up at the right moment to deflect the ball, but Evans is too tall, too strong.

He's also fast. I captured this play from coaches' tape to get a sense of how many New York Giants are chasing Evans after this catch, and how long it takes them to track him down:

That's just stupid. Sure, young Megatron might have scored, but any other receiver this size would've been caught from behind earlier than Evans. There are four Giants trailing Evans, three of them defensive backs. Evans outweighs them by 30 pounds. He actually might have scored, too, but fellow receiver Donteea Dye did not realize his teammate would break into the clear, and so did not block corner Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie hard enough. With more space on the sideline, Evans may have gotten to the end zone.

Even beyond his speed, Evans is a sick athlete. I'll acknowledge that his hips aren't the smoothest coming in and out of breaks, but Evans certainly honed his vertical skills as a star prep shooting guard: he can jump more than three feet, and is coordinated as hell.

This is the game-winner against the Falcons in Week 13. Winston makes this throw after a wild scramble. Evans might've been Winston's first read, but he was covered; Winston looks at other receivers, but then he comes back to Evans and simply lays it way out in front of him, almost out of bounds. Evans somehow grabs it and slides a knee into the end zone before his elbow smacks white paint. You bet Duck Tats holds on here. Touchdown.

I'm simply blown away by how dominant Evans is. It's too simple to excuse his hands problems, of course: if he keeps dropping balls at his current pace, he'll wind up an NFL might-have-been. But without minimizing his drops, I'll say that I have hopes he can clean up that part of his game. Everything else is golden. Vincent Jackson probably won't play either of the Tampa's final two games—which hopefully ensures Evans a big workload against the Bears and the Panthers—and is due roughly $10 million in 2016 (his walk year), making him eminently cuttable. I believe the Bucs have their franchise quarterback and their franchise receiver. Evans is glued to my fantasy lineup for the foreseeable future, and in your Week 16 title game, he's the cornerstone of yours.

Christopher Harris (@HarrisFootball) is a six-time Fantasy Sports Writing Association award winner. He hosts the Harris Football Podcast every weekday. Find it on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn and most other podcast apps, as well as at HarrisFootball.com.