Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans was hot on Sunday. Literally and figuratively.
Six catches for 171 yards and a touchdown. Hot. Eighty-nine degrees and 69-percent humidity af kickoff. Also hot.
“Wow,” Evans told PFT by phone after the game, a 27-17 Tampa Bay win. “So hot. I mean, people would think I’d be used to it. But you can’t get used to this. It’s different.”
It’s different because game intensity is always more than practice intensity.
“I mean, in practice, we go hard, right?” Evans said. “But in the games, you go a little bit harder, and everybody knows it. So, you know when it’s game time and today, I don’t know. I guess at one o’ clock it’s going to be the hottest it’s going to be. I got some fluids and you know that helped me out a ton.”
He got the fluids at halftime. And he needed them after a 70-yard catch and run in the second quarter that had him out of gas before he could get to the end zone.
“I was trying to pick my knees up and get there because it’s hard to get those long ones, you know, those long catch and runs and you want to end up in the end zone,” Evans said.
They finished the drive with a touchdown. They finished the game with a win. They’re 2-0 through two weeks. Hot or cold or in between, they’ll take it.