SIKKEMA’S STAT OF THE WEEK
The first edition of the Cover 3 column is going to focus a lot on the wide receiver position. All three segments of the column will, in some way, hone in on what the Bucs do and do not have at receiver, and will also highlight possible solutions.

If you ask any football fan out there to name the first player that came to their mind when they heard the words “Tampa Bay Buccaneers,” most would say quarterback Jameis Winston right off the bat. But if you asked them to name another present-day Buccaneer, my bet is that more than 90 percent of the answers would be Mike Evans.

There are some damn good reason for that, too. At just 23 years of age, Evans has already posted three 1,000-yard seasons. In just three years, he’s already climbed pretty high on the franchise’s record book. He’s currently seventh all-time in receiving yards with 3,578 yards, and fifth all-time in total receiving touchdowns with 27 (a record he’ll most likely break before his rookie contract is even up).

Evans’ usage has evolved throughout those three season. In his first season, he finished with 1,051 yards and a franchise-record 12 touchdowns. The following season, he finished with more yards (1,206 yards) but less touchdowns (three). Then, this season, he tied his touchdown record, eclipsed his yards record (1,321 yards) and led the NFL in total targets (173).

The rest of his receiving cast had a lot to do with how he was used each season. In his rookie year, Vincent Jackson caught 70 passes to Evans’ 68. The following season, Evans led the team in catches, but there were 10 players with double digit catches instead of just eight (the touchdowns were also spread around more). Finally, in this season, with the departure of tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins and the injury to Jackson, Evans became the game plan, the adjustment and the go-to in all situations, leading the NFL in targets.

Evans has had relative success in each of his three season, but has his efficiency as a No.1 wide receiver increased as his statistical production has? To try to answer that question, let me introduce you to our good friend: Math.

Bill Jones is a wide receiver nut. The guy spends night and day watching, analyzing, and logging the production of wide receivers all over the country. Jones spends most of his focus the NFL draft, specifically receiver prospects. In his studies, Jones developed a simple but eye-opening formula to judge how a wide receiver does with the workload they’re given in the offense they’re in. In layman’s terms, Jones’ formula is designed to figure out whether the ball is best used when thrown a certain player’s way, or if there is a more effective player on the team in terms of usage. He calls his formula: Return on Investment.

In Jones’ words, the concept of return on investment is a thought process we use every day. Whether it’s in how we use our money, what we do in our free time, or which restaurants we chose to eat at. We all want to have the maximum pay off while reducing the risk to a minimum in whatever choices we make. Such a motive can be linked to overall production from the wide receiver position in an offense since there are usually many choices to make when throwing he ball.

Bucs WRs Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

The first part of the ROI formula is establishing a player’s market share (the percentages of a player’s stats compared to the team total) of targets, receptions and yards. After establishing those, we can then determine a player’s overall ROI by adding their reception conversion rate (catch share minus targets share) with their yardage conversion rate (yards share minus catch share).

In short, the rate of a star player’s production (yards and touchdowns) should be greater than the rate at which they’re targeted and subsequently bringing those targets in for catches relative to the rest of the team.

Makes perfect sense, right? 

I know that all seems a bit confusing, but it’ll make sense in time. Let’s look at Evans’ first three seasons using the ROI formula to see when he was most effective.

In 2014, Evans finished the year with 122 targets, 68 catches and 1,051 yards. He was eclipsed by Jackson in both targets and catches, so his market share in those categories will be as low as we’ll see them in his career to this point. When you divide Evans’ 122 targets with the team’s total 522 targets, we get a 23.3 percent market share value.

Market share is a great stat to use in a variety of ways. The percentage simply measures how big of a role a certain player’s production plays in the grand scheme of the offense. More or less of a market share doesn’t mean good or bad. You’ll sometimes see a player with less than 20 percent of the teams total offense have great efficiency, and in other instances a player could record over a third of their team’s market share and still be a positive. It’s all about measuring how efficient a player’s share of the pie is, regardless of size. 

After gathering the market share percentage of targets, we take Evans’ 68 catches over the total 301, which gives us 22.5 percent. Finally, his 1,051 yards over the team total 3,623 give us a percentage of 29 percent.

These are the stats with Evans as the No. 2 receiver. In his rookie year, despite leading the team in touchdowns, Evans was still a sidekick in the game-plan to Jackson, and the targets and receptions reflected that. However, Evans recording just two less catches and even more yards on 20 less targets than Jackson hint at superior efficiency in Evans’ direction. That’s a key thing to remember going forward.

In 2015, all of Evans’ numbers for the ROI formula increased. He saw 148 targets over 525 total for a market share of 28.2 percent. He recorded 74 of 312 catches for a percentage of 23.7 percent. And finally, his 1,206 of the team’s 4,042 receiving yards gave him a slight increase from the year before at 29.8 percent.

Though Evans statistics jumped in every area overall, the glaring difference in efficiency is noticed in the lessened gap between his targets and yards. I know we haven’t plugged in the conversion rates yet, but if you’re getting ahead of the lesson plan, you probably picked up the correlations between numbers. To remain as efficient, Evans’ jump in targets should have signified a bigger jump in yards when calculating correct usage. But they didn’t.

This past season, Evans’ numbers jumped even higher. His league-leading 173 targets over the team’s total 571 put his market share at 30.3 percent. His 96 catches divided by the overall 355 churned out 27 percent. And his career-high 1,321 receiving yards over the team’s 4,165 gave him market share percentage of 31.7 percent.

Now that we have all the percentages we need, it’s time to calculate Evans’ overall ROI score using the following conversions. From each season, what we first have to do is subtract Evans reception share to his target share and get a total. That’s one of the numbers. Next we subtract the yardage share to the reception share and get the second number. We then combine those two totals to see if Evans’ ROI is a net positive or negative. Positive would obviously mean the ball is being used efficiently when thrown his way compared to the rate of targets, catches and yards on the rest of the team, and a negative would hint that his usage may be forced and that the ball was moved more efficiently when thrown to other players.

Let’s see what the numbers looks like.

In all three seasons, Evans’ return on investment was a positive one, which hints that he is capable of remaining efficient, even with an increasing amount of targets. That sort of confirms what a lot of people already knew, and Evans’ production backs up the claim of him being a team’s No. 1 receiver.

But just because Evans’ numbers prove to be suitable for a major role, there is some evidence in the ROI data that tells us when he’s used best. That scenario is when he is paired with another big target receiver on the outside. Evans’ ROI score was actually better – and higher – in 2014 when he was paired with Jackson.

In 2015 and 2016, the players second to Evans in receiving yards were Charles Sims and Cameron Brate, respectively. Sims was used as a receiver both out of the backfield and from the slot receiver position, and a large portion of Brate’s receiving role came from the middle of the field. When the game plan featured those two players in that manner, Evans’ ROI was a positive, but it wasn’t even close to the net gain he had in 2014 when he was paired with Jackson, a force on the opposite sideline.

Even when simplified from the overall ROI, Evans’ 29 percent of the team’s total receiving yards compared to just receiving 23.3 percent of the team’s targets in 2014 was a huge jump in efficiency. When you take into account that that was the year he also dominated in the red zone with 12 touchdown catches, 2014 should be the year the Bucs should try to emulate when it comes to getting help at the receiver position for 2017 and beyond.

Jones’ Return on Investment formula shows that Mike Evans is a legitimate No. 1 wide receiver, as does Evans’ production, but coaches and teams shouldn’t just be happy with acquiring stars; they should always be searching for ways to put them in the best scenarios and game plans to get the most out of them. That leads us to the second part of this week’s Cover 3 column.