Jalen McMillan — Week 2: Active, Thirty-Four Throws, None His

Jalen McMillan's name does not appear in the play-by-play of Sunday's game. He was not among Tampa Bay's six inactives, and Bailey Adams at Pewter Report wrote when the list came out that McMillan was good to go. The fuller picture came from ESPN's Adam Schefter, as relayed by River Wells at Buccaneers On SI: McMillan, listed as questionable with a knee injury, was expected to play, but not in a full-time role just yet. He had missed Week 1, per the same report. On Sunday he was not thrown to, not handed the ball, and not mentioned on a penalty, a return or an injury note. The data cannot say how many snaps he played, and this show will not guess.

Where the throws went is the football here. Baker Mayfield threw 34 times: seven to Ted Hurst, six to Cade Otton, five to Emeka Egbuka, four each to Bucky Irving, Kenneth Gainwell and Tez Johnson, three to Chris Godwin, and one with no intended receiver. The downfield work belonged to Johnson and Hurst. Johnson's four targets carried a hundred 52 air yards, including a 49-yard catch; Hurst's seven carried a hundred 45. 10 Mayfield throws traveled 20 or more yards in the air and two were caught.

Back in June the preview put McMillan on the watchlist: a four-game season last year that ended with a neck fracture behind it and a strong December in it, a rookie year with eight touchdowns, and the outside receiver job Mike Evans left open. It would not underwrite the health and would not ignore the opening. Two weeks in, the opening is being filled by other people, and the health question has moved from the neck to a knee. An active game with no targets, on a reported part-time workload, is a first line rather than a verdict. Tampa Bay is home to the Vikings on Sunday the 20-seventh.

_Data via nflverse._