Mike Evans
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans.
In the end, Mike Evans looked around at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and realized, as Logan Roy once put it, that these are very much not serious people.
What other reason could there have been for Evans to leave a franchise and fanbase where he’s been beloved for over a decade to go all the way across the country to play for the San Francisco 49ers?
It’s not for money. Evans has plenty of that. He has approximately $155 million in career earnings through his first 12 seasons. He’ll stack more cash on that with a reported 3-year, $42.4 million contract with the 49ers — a deal the Buccaneers likely easily matched and may have even exceeded.
For Evans, it became about much more than money. It became about principles, a certain way of playing the game, and having an actual shot at being a contender to close out his career.
Anyone who watched the Buccaneers play at the end of last season could see that Evans’ frustration was palpable on the sideline — when he was actually playing — and that the Buccaneers are nowhere near contender status in their current form.
In the last few minutes leading up to Evans agreeing to a deal with the 49ers, perhaps the most telling moment came from ESPN’s Peter Schrager, who had rightly insisted all morning that a deal for Evans would get done on the 1st day of free agency.
“I’m being told, from a source within the Buccaneers, that they believe they are no longer in the running to sign Evans,” Schrager said. “The Buccaneers no longer believe they are being considered by Evans, and he will go elsewhere.”
Todd Bowles Epitomizes What’s Wrong With Bucs
Before Evans left town, the most shocking decision to do with the Buccaneers this offseason was when news broke that head coach Todd Bowles would be back for a 5th season.
Bowles went from average over his first 3 seasons to downright incompetent in 2025 as the Buccaneers went 8-9 and missed the playoffs for the 1st time since 2019, and Bowles’ specialty — defense — was the team’s biggest weakness once again.
The lack of accountability by Bowles following the season couldn’t have done much to endear the Buccaneers to Evans, either. Over the years, Bowles has developed the less-than-admirable trait of throwing anyone and everyone around him under the bus — like he’s done with quarterback Baker Mayfield in the past and did with fired offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard following the season.
“Baker Mayfield has constantly preached the importance of accountability being part of the culture for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but every time his head coach Todd Bowles opens his mouth to the media, he undermines that message,” The Pewter Plank’s Joe Soriano wrote. ” … It still feels almost inexplicable that Bowles kept his job this offseason after leading one of the worst collapses in Buccaneers history, as the team completely fell apart and almost seemed to quit on their head coach, visibly upset after a horrible Thursday Night Football loss to the rival Atlanta Falcons that essentially killed their season.”