Buccaneers Quarter Century Team: Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

We continue shouting out our quarter century team with the rest of the skill players.

We continue the breakdown of our all-quarter-century team on offense, this time diving into the receivers and tight ends of the last 25 years.

Let’s keep it rolling!

Wide Receiver

Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images

1st team: Mike Evans and Chris Godwin

The two best receivers in Buccaneers history are your undisputed first-teamers, what a shocker.

Standing tall as one of the best receiver tandems in all of football for nearly the last decade, Evans and Godwin have served massively important roles in bringing the franchise back to glory, and their suffering in the 2010s finally got paid back in kind with a Super Bowl win and a previously unseen streak of success.

No. 13 hardly needs much fluff here. With respect to Mike Alstott, Evans is the most prolific offensive player in team annals as he continues to solidify his case for a gold jacket and a bust in Canton, OH. Evans’s 12,684 receiving yards aren’t just easily best in Bucs history but are currently top 25 in NFL history, and his 105 receiving touchdowns are top 10 all-time.

For 11 years, we’ve been treated to dozens of highlight-reel grabs, big-time touchdowns and, of course, the vaunted 1,000-yard streak that continues to this day. We’re closer to the end than the beginning, but it sure seems like Evans still has some good tread left on the tires (just gotta keep those hamstrings healthy).

While Godwin might not be a Hall of Famer, he has consistently served as 1b to Evans’s 1a and has done so despite multiple severe injuries. One of the best slot receivers of his generation, Godwin has racked up impressive numbers to the tune of 579 receptions (18th among active players), 7,266 yards (23rd active), and 39 touchdowns (29th active) – all second place behind Evans in team history.

With the 29-year-old recently signing an extension with Tampa, he should continue to cement his legacy as long as he recovers from his broken ankle as expected.

Kim Klement-Imagn Images

2nd team: Joey Galloway and Vincent Jackson

While neither came on par with Evans or Godwin, both Galloway and Jackson garnered some fondness among Bucs faithful for their contributions to generally not-so-great teams.

Coming in a 1-for-1 swap with the Dallas Cowboys in exchange for a discouraged Keyshawn Johnson, Galloway injected some needed speed into the Bucs’ offense during the mid-aughts. Despite being in his mid-30s during his tenure, Galloway rebounded from a first-year groin injury to post three straight 1,000-yard seasons and 22 total touchdowns. He’s currently seventh all-time in receiving yards for Tampa (3,912; sixth among receivers) and 6th all-time for receiving touchdowns (28; fourth among receivers).

Jackson came over from the Chargers in 2012 and holds the distinction of being one of Tampa’s best free agent signings to that point. With so many high-profile busts at the receiver position (from Michael Clayton to Alvin Harper), Jackson provided a steady hand for the better part of five years.

He earned a Pro Bowl nod in his first season, grabbing 72 catches for 1,384 yards and 8 touchdowns. He continued his featured play the following year before settling into a co-starring role with Evans in 2014, the latter then just a fresh-faced but extremely talented rookie. Injuries and age slowed Jackson down at that point, but he still finished fifth in receiving yards (4,326) and 11th in touchdowns (20, seventh for receivers) for the team. He also still holds Buccaneers records for receiving yards in a single game (216) and the longest single reception (95 yards).

Jackson sadly passed away in 2021 due to chronic alcoholism, but he is still remembered positively for his on- and off-field contributions in Tampa.

Honorable mention: Keyshawn Johnson and Mike Williams

Two players who notched some big moments in red and pewter but could’ve been more were Keyshawn Johnson and Mike Williams. However, personal issues got in the way for both, and the result left a lot to be desired.

In desperate need of a playmaker through the air, the Bucs shipped two first-round picks to the New York Jets at the turn of the new millennium to acquire Johnson, then widely considered a top-10 receiver in football. Johnson did in fact deliver some pop Tampa sorely lacked, contributing 8 touchdowns in his first season before posting two straight 1,000-yard seasons and a Pro Bowl nod.

However, Johnson’s acrimonious relationship with head coach Jon Gruden due to his lack of consistent opportunities (infamously earning the moniker “Meshawn”) led to his early departure after the 2003 campaign, resulting in the aforementioned swap with Galloway. Johnson still finished seventh among wideouts for receiving yards (3,828) and eighth for touchdowns (17), but one has to wonder what he could’ve done had he been able to smooth tensions over with Chucky.

Just a fourth-round pick out of Syracuse in 2010, Williams stepped into a starring role as part of the “Youngry” Buccaneers, an exceedingly brief period in the early 2010s where it seemed like the Bucs had a bright future ahead of them.

Alongside Josh Freeman and LeGarrette Blount, Williams put together a 65-964-11 stat line as part of a 10-6 Bucs team that unfortunately got a poor draw of an extremely tough division (they finished third despite the 10 wins) and a disadvantageous set of Wild Card tiebreakers that kept them out of the playoffs.

Williams put together two more good seasons and earned a big-money extension, but soon after dealt with injuries and multiple off-field concerns – the most prominent of which getting stabbed in the leg by his brother. He was traded away for a Day 3 pick to the Bills and played sparsely for one more season before disappearing.

He tragically passed away from sepsis in 2023 at only 36 years old.

Tight End

Just a disclaimer that Kellen Winslow, Jr. was disqualified from this list for his multiple serious off-field transgressions that’ve got him sitting in the pokey for the next 10 years.

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

1st team: Cameron Brate

Tampa’s tight end history has been far from illustrious – Jimmie Giles still being the record-holder in, well, everything since he retired in 1986 illuminates that fact pretty clearly.

But there was one man who approached a couple of those records during his Bucs tenure, and it’s the Harvard Man himself Cam Brate. Brate played nine years in Tampa, nearly all of it as an ancillary piece rather than a featured player, but he still earned reps and produced despite playing for four different coaching staffs.

While his most memorable catch might be snagging the Lombardi Trophy during the team’s drunken Super Bowl boat crusade, Brate still finished second amongst tight ends in team history for catches (273), yards (2,857), and touchdowns (33).

Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

2nd team: Rob Gronkowski

When Brady caught his charter flight down to the bay, not too many people were shocked when his loyal human golden retriever soon followed him out of retirement.

Gronkowski’s year off proved to be rejuvenating, as he cozily slotted right in with Evans, Godwin, and (unfortunately) Antonio Brown to form an unstoppable unit for TB12 en route to the Super Bowl victory (Gronk scored twice in the Big Game).

He came back in 2021 and produced even more despite missing more games due to nagging injuries, but that was the end of it as Gronk called it quits for good in 2022. Gronkowski’s time as a Buc was brief but impactful, finishing with 100 catches, 1,425 yards, and 13 touchdowns.

Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images

Honorable mention: Cade Otton

This was close between Otton and O.J. Howard, but we’re going to give it to the former for his continued, consistent contributions to the most recent Bucs teams.

While Howard, a former first-rounder, showed tantalizing potential his first two years in the league, multiple serious injuries derailed him and basically ended his career before he was even 30 (he’s been out of the league since 2022).

Otton, meanwhile, served as a useful target in Brady’s final year and has contributed significantly to Baker Mayfield’s tenure – even briefly moonlighting as the primary offensive driver in 2024 when the receiver room got ravaged by injuries. In his young career, the 26-year-old Washington product has started 42 out of 47 games and totaled 148 catches, 1,446 yards, and 10 touchdowns – his year-by-year totals going up in almost every category with every passing year.

Otton’s chances of rapidly ascending the team’s tight end accolades seem very strong, so it will be fun to see what he can do (provided he re-signs with the team when his rookie deal expires in 2025).

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Any memories you’d like to share, Bucs Nation? Let everyone know in the comments.

Friday will highlight the offensive line before the weekend. We’ll then start fresh with defense on Monday!