Evans, 30, goes into the ultimate season of a five-year, $82.5M contract. At the time of signing (March 2018), this deal made Evans the league’s second-highest-paid receiver (behind solely Antonio Brown‘s third Steelers contract). Days later, the Chiefs added Sammy Watkins on a $16M-per-year deal. That scrutinized contract catalyzed the receiver market, and the eventful 2022 offseason — which included another notable Bucs wideout payment — led to Evans’ deal being handed many occasions over. Evans’ $16.5M AAV has dropped to seventeenth on the place. Evans’ much less completed teammate, Chris Godwin, is among the many gamers who handed him. The Bucs gave Godwin a three-year, $60M extension in March 2022.
The solely participant in NFL historical past to start out his profession with 9 1,000-yard seasons (nobody else moved previous seven to start a profession), Evans supplied appreciable support to the likes of Jameis Winston and Tom Brady. The Tenth-year go catcher is now believed to be in search of a deal according to the one the Rams gave Cooper Kupp final 12 months, Stroud provides. Los Angeles reupped Kupp on a three-year, $80.1M deal that got here with $75M assured. This got here after Kupp’s triple-crown season. Evans has not produced a season on that degree, although his physique of labor eclipses Kupp’s.
Evans has created a ways between himself and the second-best go catcher in Bucs historical past, sitting first on the franchise’s all-time receiving checklist (10,045 yards). Only Godwin and Vinny Testaverde-era weapon Mark Carrier amassed greater than 5,000 as Bucs; Godwin sits second with 5,666. Godwin, 27, is three years youthful than Evans and extra more likely to be on the 2024 roster. The Bucs are not as eager about big-ticket funds for veterans in Evans’ age vary post-Brady, Stroud notes.
This deadline does not precisely imply the tip of the road for Evans with the Bucs, who might conceivably use the franchise tag to maintain him in 2024. But the previous two groups to unholster the tag to maintain veteran wideouts — the Bengals in 2020 (A.J. Green) and Bears in 2021 (Allen Robinson) — have regretted it. The Bucs even have Antoine Winfield Jr. as a extra logical tag candidate; the fourth-year security is going right into a contract 12 months. Devin White requested a commerce this offseason however later returned to the crew. The fifth-year linebacker is not a tag candidate but in addition represents a key 2024 Bucs free agent.
Evans’ agent informed Stroud it “sickens” the veteran wideout to see holdout gamers be rewarded as he has continued to provide. Evans represents a key a part of the Bucs’ 2023 equation, which facilities round Baker Mayfield changing Brady. But if this little bit of orchestrated strain does not result in an extension within the subsequent 9 days, Evans might grow to be a commerce candidate.
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