Following a big 40-17 win over the Los Angeles Chargers, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are feeling pretty good about themselves.

They have good reason to. After all, at 8-6, the Buccaneers have secured the lead in the NFC South Division for at least one more week with the possibility of expanding that advantage if the Las Vegas Raiders do them a solid and defeat the Atlanta Falcons on Monday night.

And while that’s certainly the most important statistic right now, Tampa Bay is also feeling pretty good about its offense, which gained 506 yards of offense in Week 15 and became the only team in the NFL to have eight games with 400 or more yards of offense.

To climb to the top of that NFL ladder, the Bucs became the first Chargers opponent to score on its first two possessions of the game. In fact, coordinator Liam Coen’s unit didn’t have a single drive result in a punt and scored on 9-of-12 possessions on Sunday afternoon.

Those impressive numbers include six straight scoring drives, a streak that only ended because the game did.

Among the great performances on the Buccaneers offense was receiver Mike Evans, who had a season-high nine catches and 159 yards gained, moving him into the top 25 in NFL history in receiving yards and top 40 in league history in receptions.

Perhaps more importantly, Evans now has 749 yards receiving this season and is 251 shy of tying Jerry Rice’s record of 11 consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons. That means, with three games left to play, Evans needs to average 84 yards per game to the end of the regular season to hit the mark.

Aiding in the odds Evans can achieve this is the fact that Tampa Bay faces three teams in the bottom 12 of the NFL in passing yards allowed per play.

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