The Tampa Bay Buccaneers may not have been postseason participants this year, but their season felt like a win in many ways, namely, that they managed to avoid a third-straight 5-11 season by going 7-9, including 4-2 down the stretch.
While quarterback Jameis Winston’s 5,000-yard-30-interception season was the main storyline of the Bucs’ 2019 season, the emergence of third-year receiver Chris Godwin cannot be overlooked.
Godwin finished the year with career highs across the board: 86 receptions, 1,333 yards and nine touchdowns in just 14 games. His stellar play earned him the No. 20 spot on Pro Football Focus’ list of the top 101 players from the 2019 season.
Here’s what they had to say about the Bucs’ star receiver:
“This season, Chris Godwin emerged as one of the best receivers in all of football, and he was a human highlight reel in Tampa Bay where Jameis Winston was intent on airing the ball out and only vaguely concerned with whether the ball went close to its intended receiver. Godwin caught 75.4% of his targets (while Jameis completed just 60.7% of all his passes) and had just one drop all season despite making several circus catches. Overall, when targeting Godwin, Winston had a passer rating of 121.7.”
Fellow Bucs receiver Mike Evans landed at No. 49:
“Due to injury, Mike Evans played as many as 200 fewer snaps than some of the other wideouts on this list, and yet, he still finished the year with 1,157 yards and eight touchdowns. Evans gained 2.3 yards per route run this season and formed the league’s most explosive receiver tandem with Chris Godwin in Bruce Arians’ high-octane passing offense in Tampa. Evans made some of the biggest catches of the year for the Bucs and makes the PFF Top 101 for the fourth time in his career.”
Shockingly, Tampa Bay linebacker Shaquil Barrett, who led the NFL in sacks this past season with 19.5, did not make this list. Talk about a snub.
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