Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans has been suspended for his role in Sunday’s brawl with the Saints.
The fight involved several players on both teams, but Evans took things to another level when he decked Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore.
It’s the second time in his career that Evans has been suspended for a run-in with Lattimore. He was also suspended for one game in 2017 for hitting Lattimore.
Former NFL player Jon Runyan, who now serves as the league’s vice president of football operations, issued the suspension and told Evans in a letter that, “Your aggressive conduct could have caused serious injury to your opponent and clearly does not reflect the high standards of sportsmanship expected of a professional.”
Evans has the right to appeal, and if he exercises that right his appeal will be heard by one of the league’s two hearing officers, Derrick Brooks and James Thrash, who are jointly appointed and paid by the NFL and the NFL Players Association. If Evans loses the appeal, he will miss Sunday’s big NFC game against the Packers.
Evans will also be docked one game check, which makes it fortunate for him that his contract is structured so that most of his money comes from bonuses and his base salary is just $1.12 million for the season. He will lost a little over $60,000 in pay for his one-game suspension.