Every year, it feels like Tampa Bay Buccaneers legend Mike Evans has his agent play a little push and pull game with the Bucs franchise, and, this year, he apparently has about a handful of demands for what he is looking for in his next team.
According to ESPN reporter Jeremy Fowler, Evans has four things he wants. His next team needs to have a quarterback he believes in. They need to have a chance at the Super Bowl. That team needs a top level offensive coordinator. And finally, his next team needs to be able to grant him a promise of a lot of targets and receptions.
Well, needless to say, good luck getting all three. But when you think about it, the Buccaneers offer him as good of a shot at all four of those things with the additional fifth benefit of him maintaing his legacy as a forever Buc. Staying for your whole career at one team has become more rare in this greedier and more corporatized world of sport, but it should mean an awful lot to a player who literally has a holiday named after him in the city of Tampa.
Mike Evans has four hefty demands
So long as the Buccaneers are offering a competitive salary, they look like his best shot. Unless there is something bubbling under the surface that nobody is aware of, Baker Mayfield is a quarterback Evans believes in. The Bucs do have a chance at a Super Bowl; they may not be the favorites, but with a healthy Evans, they showed they have a valid chance. And Evans is going to get plenty of targets as the WR1 in Tampa Bay.
The only thing the Buccaneers are missing is a top offensive coordinator, but they did go out and hire a new one in Zac Robinson. So they are trying. And the very best team Evans could go to, the Buffalo Bills, may have even more targets and Super Bowl champions for Evans with an even better quarterback in MVP favorite Josh Allen, but, well, they are missing that offensive coordiantor piece, too.
Everything obviously comes down to what Evans wants, and with the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills knocking, maybe the allure of chasing a second ring elsewhere is too much for him to pass up on. But even though the Bucs don't have Tom Brady, someone remind Big Mike that he won his first ring here on Dale Mabry.