TAMPA, Fla. -- Eric Ebron had a crowd around his small space in the visiting locker room late Sunday afternoon at Raymond James Stadium. A day such as this hadn’t happened in a while for the Detroit Lions tight end.

He had just finished a 10-catch, 94-yard game that set career highs in each mark, and the anticipatory media crowd followed. He talked about the ups and downs of his day against the Buccaneers, the positives as well as the tough drop and fumble he had. Despite the largely positive performance, he understood what might be coming.

That wouldn’t necessarily be satisfaction from the public.

“No, because I bet they can’t wait to talk about how I dropped a ball,” Ebron said. “I’ll never make this fan base happy, which is cool with me. I’ll just continue to go out there and do what I do and go from there.”

This has been Ebron’s life with the Lions almost since the moment he was drafted at No. 10 overall in 2014, ahead of Aaron Donald, Odell Beckham Jr., Taylor Lewan and others who have eclipsed his productivity to this point in their careers. Yet despite the criticism, Ebron had shown improvement his first three years in the league, enough for the Lions to pick up his fifth-year option in May.

Then his 2017 season started, and it did not go well at all. Criticism was greater than ever. Ebron even acknowledged that he had some things to work through, telling ESPN on Sunday that they were mostly small off-field issues he needed to get a handle on. He declined to say what they were, but they were affecting him.

After Detroit’s Week 8 loss to Pittsburgh, during which Ebron was booed almost every time his name was mentioned at Ford Field, he openly wondered whether he would be traded a few days later at the deadline.

His name had been floated as a possible candidate to be moved. The Lions, though, chose not to trade Ebron. They stuck with him, and it has paid off. One has to wonder if the trade deadline and the stress surrounding it were part of the issue, though Ebron said that wasn't the case.

“Nah, that has nothing to do with it. A lot of people talk about it. I see it all the time,” Ebron told ESPN. “The trade deadline had nothing to do with it. It just has to do with my performance and just going out there and being the person that I am.

“I think I just had a lot on my mind, a lot of things that I needed to fix outside of football, and when that happened, I just started playing better.”

Whether the timing is coincidental or not, Ebron’s performance after the trade deadline -- and after he took care of his off-field business -- certainly has improved.

Since the trade deadline, Ebron has been one of the best tight ends in the NFL. His 27 receptions are third in the league in that stretch, behind those of Tennessee’s Delanie Walker and Kansas City’s Travis Kelce. His 289 yards in that span is No. 4 in the league, behind Walker, Kelce and New England’s Rob Gronkowski. Ebron has scored only once since the deadline, but with Detroit’s multitude of offensive options, he ends up in a numbers crunch in the red zone.

But in terms of yards and receptions, since the trade deadline, Ebron has been the most productive tight end in the NFC.

The uptick in his play also came right around the time of the birth of his son, Oliver Dash Ebron. His girlfriend had been in Houston throughout the pregnancy, so Ebron was watching from afar before making sure he was home for the birth during the team’s bye week.

Up until a week ago, he would try to fly back to Texas as often as possible when the Lions had Mondays off so he could spend time with his newborn son and wife. But prior to the birth, he was an expectant father watching from afar. Although Ebron said that wasn’t the root cause of his early-season issues, he acknowledged the pressure of becoming a father for the first time.

“A lot of pressure has to do with whenever you have your first child,” he said. “A lot of it didn’t have to do with that, but there was a lot of pressure on me having my first child. I don’t know if that was really a factor, but I can’t say that it wasn’t either because obviously it plays with everybody mentally.

“I don’t know. Maybe it turned a clock for me and made me a better person. I think that whole situation is exactly what happened, made me a better person.”

Whatever it is that has caused Ebron to become one of the more productive members of the Detroit offense over the past month, the timing has been good. He has played about as well as he can and might be playing his way into a role with the Lions in 2018 -- something that seemed unlikely two months ago.

“His confidence is obviously built up through these games,” receiver Marvin Jones said. “He’s making some important catches, particularly on third downs, and yeah, it’s been great. I know that he’s confident and wants to go out there and make those big plays that we all know he can.

“He’s doing that right now, so that’s solid.”