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Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield, offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs and wide receiver Mike Evans.
There are some insults that can serve as the right kind of motivation, if used properly.
For 2 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers best players — and 2 of the franchise’s greatest players of all time — a postseason diss could serve as exactly that.
Following the announcement of the latest class of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees on February 5, Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox put out a list of the 12 active NFL players most likely to land in the Hall of Fame some day.
The list did not include wide receiver Mike Evans and left offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs — both Super Bowl champions and NFL All-Pros.
Several Head-Scratchers on HOF List
Of the 12 players on Knox’s list, there are only a handful who should be considered no-doubt, 1st ballot inductees: Cleveland Browns edge rusher Myles Garrett, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
A few more seem likely to join that group on the first ballot — specifically Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Lane Johnson.
While no wide receivers made the list, the one player on the list who seemed like a direct slight to Wirfs was San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams.
In 16 seasons with the Washington Commanders and San Francisco 49ers, Williams is a 5-time NFL All-Pro and 12-time Pro Bowler but has never won a Super Bowl.
In 6 seasons, Wirfs is a 3-time NFL All-Pro, 5-time Pro Bowler and won a Super Bowl as a rookie in 2020, when he started all 16 games. He’s also the only player in NFL history to earn NFL All-Pro honors at both right offensive tackle and left offensive tacke.
Evans might be an even more confusing slight. In the 12 seasons since he was a first round pick by the Buccaneers in the 2024 NFL draft, he’s a 2-time NFL All-Pro, 6-time Pro Bowler and set the NFL record for most consecutive 1,000-yard seasons to start a career (11) a well as tying Hall of Famer Jerry Rice’s record for consecutive 1,000-yards seasons (11).
Hall of Fame Monitor: Analytics-Based HOF Outlook
While we’ve all learned more about Hall of Fame voting than we probably ever wanted to since former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was denied entry in his first year of eligibility, there’s another, acerbic way of looking at candidacy for players.
Pro Football Reference’s Hall of Fame Monitor takes an analytics-based approach to any given player’s Hall of Fame candidacy and is “designed to estimate a player’s chances of making the Pro Football Hall of Fame using AV, Pro Bowls, All-Pros, championships, and various stat milestones. The players listed below are the top 250 HOFm-rated players who played QB starting in 1955 or later for at least 50 career games. A score of 100 is around the average modern-era inductee.”
According to the HOFm, Evans’ current rating of 77.07 puts him firmly in the Hall of Fame conversation — that puts him behind just 2 other active wide receivers with Tyreek Hill (95.90) and DeAndre Hopkins (80.59).
Wirfs might have quite a bit more work to do with a current HOFm rating of 46.43. That’s currently way too low for what might be considered the “cutoff” and is second among active players at his position behind Williams (77.28).
Tony Adame covers the NFL for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington Commanders, Dallas Cowboys, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Denver Broncos. A veteran sports writer and editor since 2004, his work has been featured at Stadium Talk, Yardbarker, NW Florida Daily News and Pensacola News Journal. More about Tony Adame
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