Happy 32nd birthday!
As Joe is typing this here post, he plans to be at the last fully open Bucs practice of 2025 this morning at One Buc Palace.
Joe cannot predict something weird happening, like a dead battery, a truck issue, a wreck, getting arrested or the chance Joe doesn’t even wake up Thursday morning. Short of those things happening, Joe will be at practice.
Joe hasn’t missed a Bucs practice this summer. Was even at the two Bucs practices in Pittsburgh. Whenever Mike Evans has been on the field, he has dominated.
It hasn’t mattered who Evans has gone up against; he is making play after play this summer. In Pittsburgh, Evans may have had his greatest practice. He was damn near unstoppable against what is thought to be a strong Pittsburgh defense.
Evans continued his dominant ways yesterday when he made a truly sick one-handed catch skying straight up to snag a Baker Mayfield pass.
It honestly reminded Joe of a Jamal Mashburn baseline one-handed slam against Michigan in the 1993 Final Four.
And Joe finds it mindboggling that Evans quite possibly is having his best training camp and month of August at 32 — he turned 32 today!
Now here comes the scary part: It isn’t summer until Evans has a hamstring issue. It’s a rite of passage, it seems. That the NFL season cannot start until Evans is dealing with a hamstring pull.
That has not happened yet. With the sudden news of Jalen McMillan’s being out for as few as four but possibly more games with a severely strained neck in Pittsburgh thanks to a Steelers camp meat corner.
The Bucs are that annual Evans’ summer hamstring injury from having a rookie as their No. 1 receiver for the foreseeable future.
We don’t know when Chris Godwin will return and we don’t know when McMillan will return. Godwin, coming back from two ankle surgeries, has yet to practice and has yet to even run on a side practice field with a trainer, at least when reporters have been at One Buc Palace.
Joe has to believe Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht will be scouring available receivers in the next nine days with Cutdown Day coming a week from Saturday.
Joe has received a bunch of Twitters asking about Amari Cooper. Joe isn’t sure he has anything left in the tank. If a guy is any good, why is he unemployed in August?
Cooper did play for Buffalo last year. His numbers were paltry but his catch percentage was his best since he played for Dallas in 2021.
Joe isn’t sure Cooper would usurp Sterling Shepard as the Bucs’ No. 3 receiver but at least he’d be some decent veteran depth.