Even Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans can admit that if Tampa is anything, it’s (the true home of the Cuban sandwich, and) a hockey town.
So it shouldn’t have been surprising that Bucs wide receiver Mike Evans took a page out of the Tampa Bay Lightning playbook Sunday against the New Orleans Saints.
It may not have been his intention, but when Evans leveled Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore after the latter had exchanged heated words with Tom Brady and shoved Leonard Fournette in the face, Tampa Bay’s all-time leading receiver ended up sparking a 17-point run that ended the Bucs’ frustrating streak of regular-season losses to their bitter NFC South rivals.
In hockey, when a team is struggling through a lackluster performance, sometimes a well-timed hit or even a full-on fight (win or lose) can give the players a momentum/energy boost that propels them to wake up and take their game to another level. Even Bolts captain Steven Stamkos, who isn’t a frequent fighter, has been known to drop the gloves when necessary.
This isn’t to condone Evans’ actions, which were deserving of the ejection he received immediately afterward, as well as the one-game suspension that was levied Monday. The future Hall of Famer unnecessarily escalated the situation and turned it into an all-out brawl, and he’s now facing the consequences.
It’s also impossible to ignore that up to that point, his team was locked in a 3-3 game, and things looked bleak on his side of the ball in particular. After the dust settled from the fight, Tampa Bay forced four turnovers on defense in a span of nine plays, the offense finally found the end zone, and the Saints were never able to match their intensity the rest of the game.
Evans may have gone too far, but he was defending his teammates, like any captain would, on the field or the ice.
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