Buccaneers have not talked extension with Mike Evans

Entering his fourth season, Buccaneers star wide out Mike Evans is just about due for an extension – but no talks have taken place.

Mike Evans is one of the biggest reasons for the Buccaneers’ recent success. Without Evans, Jameis Wisnton isn’t putting up the numbers he is and the Bucs are not on the precipice of a playoff caliber team. The Bucs picked up Evans’ fifth-year option but have yet to give him his long term extension.

In fact, there have been zero talks about it.

That news is courtesy of Scott Reynolds of Pewter Report as he spoke about it on the most recent Pewter Nation Podcast. There may be a few reasons the talks have not taken place yet. Perhaps they wanted to wait until training camp started, like they did with Demar Dotson last season. Or maybe they’re waiting to see what Odell Beckham Jr. hauls in to find a fair market value for Evans.

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Have no fear, Bucs fans. A deal will absolutely get done.

Evans has over 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons and is coming off his first Pro Bowl selection. The Winston/Evans connection is going to be the central focus of the Buccaneers offense for the foreseeable future as the Bucs have the rare opportunity to team a young franchise quarterback with a young stud receiver.

The Pewter Nation crew alluded to Evans getting a five or six year deal in the $80-90 million dollar range. The top five paid receivers in the league – Antonio Brown, A.J. Green, Julio Jones, Dez Bryant, Demaryius Thomas – are hauling in an average of $14,850,241 per year. Evans certainly belongs in the conversation with those players, so a $14.5-16 million dollar per year contract is not only within the realm of possibility, it’s very likely.

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It’s a good thing Jason Licht and his crew are so good about using the salary cap properly. If Evans ends up in the $16 million per year range, and Winston reaches a Derek Carr level contract, there’s going to be a whole lot of money tied in to those two players.