Receiver Mike Evans apparently will retire as a Buccaneer only if he retires after the 2023 season.
Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times reports that talks on a new contract for Evans are at an impasse, and that Evans will enter “what likely will be his final season” with the team that drafted him in 2014.
Per Stroud, Evans is believed to be targeting Cooper Kupp money. The Super Bowl LVI MVP signed a three-year, $80.1 million deal in 2022. Of that amount, $75 million was guaranteed.
Evans currently is playing under a contract that pays an average amount of $16.5 million. He has a cap number of $23.698 million for 2023, and the Bucs will take a dead-money charge of $12.198 million in 2024.
Evans did not take a hard line in an effort to get a new deal. And he’s not happy that his decision to show up and not complain was used against him.
“It sickens [Evans] to see players hold out and get rewarded, when he does everything for the organization on the field, in the community, off the field, working with other players in the organization,” Evans’s agent Deryk Gilmore said Wednesday, via Stroud.
While Gilmore might regret those words the next time a client of his holds out, Evans rolled the dice on a non-squeaky wheel would get some grease. That’s usually not how it works.
So here’s how it will work. Evans will attempt to generate 1,000 yards for the tenth straight season of his career. And then the Bucs will either dig deep to pay him, apply the franchise tag (at $28.35 million based on his 2023 cap number, that’s not happening), or watch him walk away.
