Bruce Arians: Lavonte David Will Be Harder To Replace Than Mike Evans
April 9th, 2026
Take a look at this, Mike, while you try to figure out why $1.5 million only gets you 1,100 square feet of house and no trees in Sunnyvale, California.
Bucco Bruce Arians, the Bucs’ Super Bowl-winning head coach and the senior advisor to Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht, says Mike Evans will be easier to replace than Lavonte David.
Yes, Arians has good eyesight and saw David play last season without his trademark burst and struggle in areas he never had previously.
Joe spent a lot of time around Bucs officials last week in Phoenix and didn’t get a vibe the Bucs are concerned about the on-field loss of David. But Arians seems to think David will be a bigger loss than Evans, the future Hall of Fame receiver.
Arians made that clear during his chat with the Bleav network.
While Arians said Evans will be sorely missed, he said the receivers group is very strong with Emeka Egbuka, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan.
“Lavonte will be the harder one to replace,” Arians said, comparing David to Evans. “But I think Todd is going to do a great job of revamping the defense. We gave up too many leads last year, and we’ve got to do a better job of that.”
An objective observer, Joe supposes, could argue both Evans and David will be easy to replace based on their 2025 production. If that’s accurate, then the Bucs should be in fantastic shape to win 10 games this season.