Waiting game.
Joe is not sweating what Mike Evans will do in a few weeks when, if you believe his pessimistic agent, Evans will test the market when the free agency dinner bell rings on Monday, March 9.
Deryk Gilmore, who represents Evans, is a fearmonger who has played folks with his doomsday rhetoric of Evans bolting the Bucs. In other words, he’s cried “wolf” before.
So when Gilmore recently said Evans will play football but shop himself around as a free agent, an eye roll came from Joe. Here we go again.
Each time Gilmore has stoked fears in Bucs fans, Evans ended up re-signing.
In trying to examine a crystal ball to figure out how Evans is leaning, Jenna Laine of ESPN pointed out all the emotional reasons Evans would be inclined to stay, including his relationship with Baker Mayfield, close friendships with Bucs receivers, how Todd Bowles retained Evans’ position coach Bryan McLendon, and how new Bucs offensive coordinator Zac Robinson is Liam Coen II. And Coen steadily found ways to get Evans open.
However, if there is a team or teams willing to break the bank for Evans, Laine isn’t sure the Bucs will use the franchise tag on Evans.
Could the Bucs franchise tag Evans? Technically, yes, but the feeling inside the organization is that Evans has given 12 seasons to the team, and he deserves to have [liberty] over where he spends the remaining years of his career. They also have to weigh whether the move would make sense financially, considering they’d have to pay him $27-28 million for one year when he was averaging $20.5 million on his last deal.
The franchise tag is a tool. The Bucs could use it on Evans just to buy themselves more time to work out a deal. The Bucs used this same strategy with Chris Godwin. Just because the Bucs may use it, it’s not necessarily a finality unless Evans signs the tag offer.
Again, Joe’s not losing sleep. Unless Buffalo or Kansas City or Houston offers Evans a deal he can’t refuse, Joe is confident Evans is wearing his Bucs No. 13 again.