Buccaneers: 5 elite receivers that fall short of Mike Evans

To continue picking on the Cleveland Browns and the 2014 Draft class wide receivers, Mike Evans also stands above Jarvis Landry.

Jarvis Landry has more Pro Bowl respect than Mike Evans and Odell Beckham Jr., but has a very different skillset. In the same time in the league Landry has 564 receptions; more than 100 above Mike Evans.

While having substantially more receptions than Evans, Landry only has 6,188 receiving yards and 34 total touchdowns. Landry’s average yards per receptions drops down to 11.0, showing he does far less with his opportunities than Mike Evans.

Due to the fact that they are very different players skill wise, a direct comparison between Evans and Landry becomes difficult. Evans has the nod in total yards, yards per reception, and touchdowns while Landry has the advantage in total receptions and catch percentage.

To try to account for this, yards per target sheds some light on who has the overall advantage despite differing usage and play styles. This also takes into account Evan’s lower catch rate and Landry’s higher rate of receptions.

In the end, Mike Evans averaged far fewer targets (than everyone on this list), had a lower reception percentage (a stat that is not entirely his own), and still had a far higher yards per target ratio than Landry with it coming out to 8.7 for Evans and 7.2 for Landry.

While hard to evaluate in a straight comparison, Evans has a far higher ceiling than Landry due to what he is able to do with the targets he receives. Evans’ inability to crack that glass ceiling may be due to Arians’ system that spreads the ball out more so than one like the Saint’s offense.