Thirty years ago, the Steelers lost team MVP to free agency, when quarterback Neil O’Donnell left for the Jets. Today, it happened for the first time since then.
2025 Steelers MVP Kenneth Gainwell has agreed to terms with the Buccaneers. It’s reportedly a two-year, $14 million deal.
Gainwell played well last year, despite taking only half of the offensive snaps. He had 1,023 yards from scrimmage and eight total touchdowns.
A year ago, he signed a modest one-year deal with the Steelers. He has now parlayed that into more money per year ($7 million) through 2027.
The deal makes it clear that Gainwell will join Bucky Irving as the top tailbacks in Tampa Bay, with the door closed on a return by Rachaad White.
Bucs Clips
The Buccaneers are bringing back one of their own offensive free agents.
According to multiple reports, tight end Cade Otton has agreed to return to Tampa Bay.
While exact terms of the deal have not been disclosed, Jenna Laine of ESPN reports Otton has agreed to a three-year contract.
Otton, who turns 27 in April, just completed his rookie contract with the Bucs after they selected him in the fourth round of the 2022 draft. In 2025, Otton caught 59 passes for 572 yards with one touchdown in 16 games.
Otton’s best season was in 2024, when he tallied 59 receptions for 600 yards with four TDs.
During a dozen years in Tampa, receiver Mike Evans has quietly pieced together a strong case for Canton. The next chapter could be coming with a new team.
Evans becomes a free agent on Monday. Two years ago, he re-signed with the Buccaneers before hitting the market.
Teammate Chris Godwin, who opted to stay with the Bucs during free agency a year ago, can’t process the possibility of Evans playing elsewhere.
“It would be so weird,” Godwin said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “I can’t imagine talking to him on a different field and seeing him in a different jersey. . . .
’I hope that he’s here. I don’t know the intricacies of the deal. Everybody does their own thing. I don’t know what he’s willing to take and I don’t know what they’re willing to offer. But I hope that he’s back, for a lot of reasons, but he’s my brother.”
As Stroud notes, Evans will have interest elsewhere. Possibilities include the 49ers, Chargers, Commanders, and Giants.
It all comes down to money. Chances are that the terms already are in place, with the only thing standing in the way of the news breaking is the clock striking 12 on Monday afternoon.
Evans had 11 straight 1,000-yard seasons with the Buccaneers, tying him with Jerry Rice for the all-time record. (Evans holds the record for consecutive 1,000-yard seasons to start a career.)
With 866 catches, 13,052 yards, and 108 touchdowns, Evans ranks 31st in career catches, 21st in receiving yards, and 10th in receiving touchdowns. He was a member of the team that won Super Bowl LV.
Whether he joins a new team or stays put in Tampa for at least another season will be known soon.
The Buccaneers exercised the option on punter Riley Dixon’s contract, preventing him from entering free agency, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.
The option is for $3 million and resolves the question of who the Buccaneers will have as their punter in 2026.
Dixon, 32, signed a two-year, $6 million deal, with $3 million guaranteed, in the 2025 offseason.
It initially appeared his stay in Tampa would be a short one as the Bucs worked out other punters when Dixon had two punts blocked in the first four games. He ended up averaging 44.7 yards on 63 punts, with a 38.9-yard net.
Dixon had 29 punts downed inside the 20, with four touchbacks.
He has played for 10 seasons, punting for the Broncos, Giants, Rams, and Bucs.
Dixon has a career average of 45.8 yards, with a 40.9-yard net.
The Buccaneers will not tender restricted free agent Sean Tucker, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports.
Tucker, 24, instead will become a free agent.
He served as the team’s third back behind Rachaad White and Bucky Irving.
Tucker played a career-high 177 snaps on offense last season, getting 94 touches for 354 yards and eight touchdowns.
In three seasons with the Bucs, Tucker played 45 games and totaled 151 carries for 651 yards and nine touchdowns, along with 19 catches for 152 yards and two touchdowns.
The Buccaneers have made a decision regarding one of their young defensive players.
Per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, Tampa Bay will not place a restricted free agent tender on safety Christian Izien. But the Bucs still have interest in bringing him back for 2026.
Izien, 25, joined Tampa Bay as an underrated free agent in 2023. He appeared in 17 games with four starts as a rookie before playing 14 games with 10 starts in 2024. He was on the field for 14 games with one start in 2025, getting 50 percent of special teams reps in games played, along with 20 percent of defensive snaps.
He’s tallied five passes defensed, three interceptions, and three forced fumbles in his 45 career games.
Had the Buccaneers placed a right of first refusal tender on Izien, they would have owed him $3.52 million for 2026.
The asking price is known. The outcome isn’t.
Where will defensive end Maxx Crosby play next?
DraftKings has the Bears as the +200 favorites to secure his services via trade with the Raiders. Staying put with the Raiders is a +350 proposition.
Five teams are clustered at +700: the Rams (Fuck Them Picks, Part Two), Cowboys, Bills, Ravens, and Eagles.
The Patriots land at +1000, with the Lions and Buccaneers at +1200.
The Raiders, as PFT reported last week, want two first-round picks and a player for Crosby. Crosby, as Jay Glazer said during Super Bowl week, is “done” with the Raiders.
Whether this saga is done remains to be seen. Although no trades can become official until next Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. ET, teams can reach tentative agreements now.
Buccaneers linebacker Lavonte David is due to become a free agent next week. His status has been complicated by offseason knee surgery.
JoeBucsFan.com reports that David underwent arthroscopic knee surgery after the 2025 season. The knee was drained on a weekly basis during the season.
The surgery was deemed a success (as they all are), and David rehabbed under the team’s supervision.
The Buccaneers hope to bring David back for a 15th season. He’s had an amazing run at one of the most physically demanding positions in the sport.
David said last month that he’s “undecided” on whether to play or retire.
Buccaneers wide receiver Jalen McMillan closed his rookie season with seven touchdowns in the team’s final five regular season games, but a neck injury interfered with his ability to build on that in 2025.
McMillan missed the first 13 games of the season after getting injured in the preseason to add to woes at the position that included extended absences for Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. McMillan caught 12 passes in the team’s final four games and head coach Todd Bowles said last week that the wideout’s return was a positive sign of things to come.
“I was just happy to see him come back,” Bowles said, via the team’s website. “There was a point in the season where I did not know if he would come back and then if he came back, I did not know if he would have the jitters, especially with the neck injury. I think the first game back he took a vicious hit and kind of fell on his neck and he got up like nothing happened and then I was happy after that. He is a very talented guy and he is a very passionate guy. I think he fits in great with the receiver room and he is a workhorse. He comes out to work everyday and I think he has some great football ahead of him.”
Evans is planning to check out what’s available to him as a free agent and his departure would make McMillan’s continued health and productivity even more significant to the Buccaneers’ offensive future.
The asking price was made clear last week to interested teams. The question now is whether someone is sufficiently interested in sending two first-round picks and a player to the Raiders for defensive end Maxx Crosby.
Over the weekend, Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times explored the question of whether the Buccaneers would do it.
Most of Stroud’s article focuses on reasons why the Bucs would refrain. One, longtime G.M. Jason Licht rarely trades draft picks. Two, the team’s recent history with respect to the acquisition of edge rushers hasn’t been good.
But they need help at the position. Haason Reddick was a disappointment in 2025, after signing a one-year, $14 million deal. YaYa Diaby is the primary pass rusher. And they have optimism regarding David Walker, a 2025 fourth-round pick who tore an ACL early in training camp.
On the surface, Stroud seems to devote most of the item to explaining why the Buccaneers won’t pull the trigger on a trade for Crosby. On the other hand, it feels like an effort to plant a flag as to the possibility, in the event it happens.
“If Crosby is available, history tells us Licht won’t go after him,” Stroud writes. “But fortune does favor the bold at times.”
The Raiders may also favor sending Crosby out of the conference. And Raiders minority owner (with real influence over the football operations) Tom Brady may be willing to soften the expectations a bit as a favor to the G.M. who helped Brady get his seventh Super Bowl ring.
For now, it’s something worth keeping an eye on. The Bucs hold the 15th overall pick in the draft. If the Bears, for example, offer the 25th overall pick in 2026 and a first-rounder that could be even lower in 2027, maybe Tampa could attach something less than its first-rounder next year to get it done. The question then would be whether the Raiders want a player with whom the Bucs would be willing to part ways.
While Raiders G.M. John Spytek and coach Klint Kubiak said all the right (and predictable) things about Crosby during the Scouting Combine last week, there’s been nothing to contradict Jay Glazer’s claim from less than four weeks ago that Crosby is “done” with the Raiders.
The Raiders may ultimately have to take the best offer they can get. There’s a chance that the highest 2026 pick they’d acquire would come from Tampa Bay.
