With the arrival of the NFL offseason, so too arrives the winds blowing the scent of garbage speculation. It’s part of the fun of this time of year, if we’re being honest, as it’s truly a Wild West situation where anything is possible and no talking point is off the table.
Sometimes the strange becomes true. The New York Giants letting Saquon Barkley go felt like a bad idea at the time and aged even worse once he went to a division rival and won a Super Bowl the next season. Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans are no strangers to wild rumors coming true, with just five years separating us from the frenzy that brought Tom Brady to Tampa — and a Super Bowl not long after.
Matthew Stafford was traded by the Lions a few years ago, A.J. Brown was dealt away by the Titans, and how can we forget the drama with Aaron Rodgers last year? All of this seemed a little weird in the weeks leading up to the moves eventually getting made and hardly any worked out for the team on the departing end of things.
Bucs fans are already getting subjected to reckless offseason speculation, from Chris Godwin’s future to Rachaad White being a potential cap casualty. Nothing provides proof that we’re in peak offseason nonsense zone than seeing Mike Evans’ name tossed in with players the team could cut to save money ahead of free agency.
Mike Evans absurdly listed among three Buccaneers players who could be cap casualties this offseason
OverTheCap listed out 100 potential cut candidates this offseason, and had three for the Bucs. Two of them made sense but the third was Mike Evans which is so absurd it’s almost hard to comprehend.
No further context was given outside of listing off the money Tampa Bay would save by releasing Evans, which is hardly worth what his loss would be. Evans might be closer to the end of his career than any other part but he’s still not only a top player on the Bucs’ offense but he remains a Top 5 receiver in the entire league.
Cutting him loose is laughable and would force us to banish Jason Licht to whatever island Nico Collins is on right now after trading away Luka Doncic. It’s really not that wide of a gap between how insanely dumb that trade was for the Mavericks and how stupid it would be for the Bucs to cut Evans to save some cash.
The Doncic trade is actually a decent comp for what it would like for the Bucs to let Evans go, and not just from the standpoint of the damage it would do to the team’s talent and fan morale. Doncic instantly made the Lakers a better team and gave them a player who will help them compete for a title for years to come. Evans has fewer seasons left in him but would instantly make any team that signs him better and closer to winning a Super Bowl.
It would also give that team a ticked off Evans who would be looking to have the best season of his career just to stick it to the Bucs.
Nothing good comes from Tampa Bay releasing Evans. Another team in the league would be closer to a Super Bowl than the Bucs, and the offense would lose a key cog. Evans missed three games last year after suffering a hamstring injury and while the points per game didn’t really change much the context of the games did. Had Evans been healthy against the Chiefs, chances are the Bucs might have gone for two rather than settling for giving Patrick Mahomes a chance to force overtime.
The same can be said for the loss to San Francisco, where Evans would have been a key target for Baker Mayfield on what might have been a game winning drive in the final minutes of the game.
If nothing else, it would be Liam Coen-levels of betrayal by the Bucs and the burning of a bridge that would never get rebuilt. Evans chose to stay in Tampa Bay last year rather than test free agency, and has been adamant about how special it would be to play his entire career in one place. Being a Bucs For Life has become a core part of Evans’ storied career and to have the team be the one that prevents that from happening would be front office malpractice.
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