The 49ers secured a significant addition to their offense in March by signing veteran receiver Mike Evans.
While Evans will be 33 in August, he was still considered one of the top talents available at receiver this offseason. The 2025 season was the first in Evans’ career that he did not reach 1,000 yards, having played only eight games due to injury.
Even as Evans tallied just 30 catches for 368 yards last year, the 49ers are confident he can continue to be effective in their offense in 2026.
“I mean, he’s a Hall of Fame wide receiver,” 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said on Thursday, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “He’s a one-on-one match-up that you can take advantage of when he’s on the field, and when he’s got one-on-one coverage, you want to get the ball to Mike. You feel like he’s going to win.
“He’s about as competitive as they come. He’s a guy who’s going to win his match-ups, and it’s just really cool to have that alpha type of player out on the field at that position for us again. … And we’re going to use him the way he’s been used his whole career, and hopefully, get a few more things out of him, too, along the way, as we get him in our program.”
A six-time Pro Bowler, Evans has recorded 866 catches for 13,052 yards with 108 touchdowns so far in his 12-year career.
Bucs Clips
The Buccaneers not only signed their top pick, Rueben Bain Jr., but they also got nearly their entire draft class under contract on Thursday.
The Bucs have signed third-round wide receiver Ted Hurst, fourth-round cornerback Keionte Scott, fifth-round defensive tackle DeMonte Capehart, fifth-round offensive guard Billy Schrauth and sixth-round tight end Bauer Sharp, Jenna Laine of ESPN reports.
Those six signings leave only second-round linebacker Josiah Trotter unsigned.
All six signed four-year deals.
The Buccaneers have their top draft pick under contract.
Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times reports that edge rusher Rueben Bain has signed his rookie deal with the team. It’s a four-year contract and, as is the case with all first-round picks, the team holds an option for a fifth season.
The four-year deal is worth over $23.76 million with a signing bonus of just over $13.74 million.
Bain was usually projected to be drafted before the Bucs were on the board at No. 15, but he wound up sliding to that spot in what the Buccaneers believe was a piece of good luck. They benefitted from another slide in 1995 when they picked up defensive tackle Warren Sapp and Bain might have been channelling that common thread when he donned Sapp’s jersey for Thursday’s arrival to Tampa’s rookie minicamp.
Former Buccaneers (for the 2025 offseason and training camp) safety Shilo Sanders interjected himself into the NFL narrative last week, with misogynistic comments directed at Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
That puts him on the radar screen for relevant news. Here’s something, from Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today.
Shilo has a pending bankruptcy case, arising from $11 million in debt. The debt traces to an incident from 2015, when a then-15-year-old Shilo Sanders allegedly assaulted and severely injured a security guard at his school. The security guard sued Shilo and his parents. (His father is Colorado coach Deion sanders.)
Shilo’s parents eventually were dropped from the lawsuit, but a default judgment of $11.89 million was entered against Shilo Sanders in 2022, after Shilo failed to show up for the trial of the case.
Shilo Sanders filed for bankruptcy protection in an effort to have the debt discharged. A trial is set for later this year on the question of whether the debt can be discharged. If it was a “willful and malicious injury,” it can’t be discharged.
Shilo Sanders has claimed he acted in self-defense.
Most recently, the parties have been arguing over the evidence that can be introduced into the record at the looming trial, with Shilo’s lawyer trying to exclude evidence regarding his history of discipline in unrelated matters.
The trial on this specific issue is currently set for August 31.
Undrafted in 2025, Shilo Sanders signed with the Buccaneers. He was released during the preseason and has not signed with another team.
Jameis Winston is going to eat a W this summer. Along with the rest of the letters that spell, “World Cup.”
Fox has announced that Winston will serve as a correspondent for its coverage of the FIFA World Cup, to be played throughout North America in June and July.
Winston, the first pick in the 2015 NFL draft, has gone from five-year starter in Tampa Bay to backup who periodically gets the call to play.
From 2015 to 2019, Winston started 70 games with the Buccaneers. Since 2020, he has started 19 games while playing for the Saints, Browns, and Giants.
On the media side, he first rose to prominence while working for Fox during the week of Super Bowl LIX. He also appeared on the Netflix broadcast of MLB’s opening night in 2026.
Winston will be able to waltz into a media career, whenever he’s ready to make the transition. For now, Fox seems to be the favorite to eventually turn temporary assignments into something more permanent.
For many years, Mike Evans was the leader of the Buccaneers’ receivers room.
But that is no longer the case, with Evans electing to sign a three-year deal with the 49ers in March.
Tampa Bay still has plenty of talent at wideout, including 2025 first-round pick Emeka Egbuka. In an interview with Up & Adams this week, Egbuka noted that while the Bucs feel the loss of Evans, they have the players to fill the void.
“Obviously, I think there’s a passing of the torch, and it needs to be received by someone,” Egbuka said. “I think that our management — our G.M., our owners, and everything like that — they’ve done a great job of bringing guys in who are up to the task. So, obviously, they drafted me last year. But we have Chris Godwin, we have Jalen McMillan, and we have a bunch of guys who are ready to make an impact. We just drafted a wide receiver [Ted Hurst out of Georgia State], so we’re really excited to see what he can do.
“But obviously, we’re feeling the effects of Mike being gone. He’s so loved within the building, within the Tampa community. There’s nothing but love for him. There’s no hard feelings or anything. We all believe he’s going to do amazing things in San Francisco. But, yeah, there’s a little bit of a passing of the torch, and handoff, and I think everybody in our room is up to the task.”
Egbuka, in particular, seems up to the task of leading Tampa Bay’s wideouts, telling Kay Adams that he feels leadership is “always something that’s come very natural to me.”
“I remember in draft prep and everything like that, when the Bucs were evaluating me, that was something that they put a lot of high emphasis on, was me being a leader, and stepping into leadership roles,” Egbuka said. “I was a captain at Ohio State — been a captain on pretty much every football team I’ve been a part of. So, it’s definitely something that’s always come naturally to me when I was younger.”
Egbuka, 23, caught 63 passes for 938 yards with six touchdowns as a rookie in 2025.
The biggest story in the opening days of the 2026 league year was the Ravens’ decision to pull out of a trade for Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby and the fallout from that move went beyond Baltimore and Las Vegas.
During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, Buccaneers General Manager Jason Licht shed some light on how Tampa was impacted by the deal. The Bucs took edge rusher Rueben Bain with the 15th overall pick, but Licht thinks things would have played out differently had the trade gone through.
The Raiders would have landed the 14th pick and pass rusher would have been an obvious need for General Manager John Spytek in a post-Crosby world, but the pick remained in Baltimore. Spytek had also agreed to sign former Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum during the period when the trade was set to go through, which meant that the Ravens had an acute need on their offensive line at No. 14. They didn’t have as big a need for an edge rusher after signing Trey Hendrickson, so guard Vega Ioane became the choice.
“Then I think going back to free agency when, you know, the Raiders-Ravens trade didn’t work out, I think that in some way I’d like to think helped us a little bit. I was a little afraid if the Raiders made that trade, Spytek, he and I are very close, he was taunting me a little bit, hey, we’re sitting right in front of you, I know what you need,” Licht said “And then, you know, Crosby goes back to the Raiders, then the Ravens are sitting there again with their pick, and I know they love their edge rushers, too, so that had me nervous. They took Vega, which is an awesome pick, you know, they need offensive linemen. Maybe the fact that the Raiders signed Linderbaum helped us get Rueben. We’re all trying to help each other out here, especially the people that are good friends, so thanks, Spytek.”
Licht said the Bucs were in on Hendrickson “a little bit” before he agreed to terms with Baltimore, but the way everything came together left them with a “shiny new toy” at the top of the draft.
Mike Evans spent more than a decade as the top receiver on the Buccaneers, but that run ended when he signed with the 49ers earlier this year.
Emeka Egbuka is one choice to take over that mantle. The 2025 first-round pick had 63 catches for 938 yards and six touchdowns, which made him their leading receiver during a season that saw Evans and Chris Godwin miss considerable time with injuries.
Godwin is back for 2026 along with Jalen McMillan, Tez Johnson, Kameron Johnson, and third-round pick Ted Hurst, but Egbuka appears to be the logical pick to inherit the kind of role that Evans played while in Tampa. Egbuka believes he’s ready for that or anything else the team might ask him to do.
“I try to do whatever my coaches ask of me,” Egbuka said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “If they want to call my name on third-and-10 and fourth down and all that type of stuff, I’m gonna be the guy who’s there to execute. If they want me to stick my nose in there and block and do whatever I need to help the team win, that’s really where my head’s at. There’s no room for ‘me, me, me’ in this industry.”
A full picture of how the Bucs will deploy their wideouts under new offensive coordinator Zac Robinson will have to wait for a few months, but it will be a surprise if it doesn’t show Egbuka in a prominent position.
The Buccaneers have their quarterback, in Baker Mayfield. But Mayfield has a contract for only one more season.
Where do things stand when it comes to Mayfield getting a new deal?
G.M. Jason Licht recently appeared on WDAE radio in Tampa, and he was asked whether discussions have commenced.
“Baker is at the forefront of our mind at all times,” Licht said, via JoeBucsFan.com. “All of our plans revolve around Baker, and that’s something that we’ll get to at some point. I have had a lot of discussions with Baker about the team. We texted during the draft about some of the picks. I know he’s excited about the players that we took. We have a great relationship. Listen, nobody here wants Baker playing for [any] other team. So I’ll just leave it at that.”
It’s one thing to want to keep him; it’s another thing to land at the right numbers.
After playing under a one-year deal in 2023, Mayfield became eligible for free agency. Even though the Bucs didn’t apply the franchise tag, no other serious contenders emerged (even though they should have). Mayfield ultimately signed a three-year, $100 million contract.
So what’s the right figure now? Look at the market. Consider where Mayfield fits in it.
The market is the market. The cap is the cap. And both keep going up.
Delay never makes it any cheaper. New deals will be done to push the bar higher.
If there isn’t a new contract before the start of the 2026 regular season, things could get interesting. A big season could put the franchise tag in play. And if the Bucs decide not to tag him again, he could become an attractive option for anyone looking for a new starter in 2027.
Every year, there will be.
ESPN won’t comment on whether it will be reviewing the reporting of former ESPN (and The Athletic) reporter Dianna Russini, given the photos published last week of Russini with Patriots coach Mike Vrabel in March 2020. That won’t stop others from reviewing her reporting as to matters relating to Vrabel’s team at the time.
As it relates to the 2021 trade that sent receiver Julio Jones from the Falcons to the Titans, it’s fair to wonder whether the reporting was calculated to help Tennessee secure the player under the most favorable terms.
Tony Farmer, who has been extensively covering the situation on Twitter, has found another report that objectively merits scrutiny.
As Farmer notes, Russini reported — only four days after the March 2020 photos reportedly were taken — that the Titans were “not interested” in quarterback Tom Brady, and that they were instead focused on extending the contract of quarterback Ryan Tannehill, who had been named the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year in 2019.
While this item lacks the potential strategic benefits to the Titans of the Julio Jones reporting, it’s another bread crumb on a trail that people are now examining. And it’s fair to question whether the Titans were simply putting a positive P.R. spin on the possibility that the Brady had said “no thanks” to the Titans before the Titans created the impression that they were saying “no thanks” to Brady.
Although the 2020 negotiating window had not yet opened, rampant Brady tampering was happening. Teams were talking to him (and about him) before the official window for talking to him (or about him) had opened. It’s not unreasonable to think that, by March 15, he had crossed Tennessee off the list.
For now, it’s another piece of a puzzle that spans at least six years. And it underscores the reality that the NFL insider game isn’t about gumshoe reporting. It’s about leveraging the right relationships in order to be in position to be handed key pieces information, sometimes in ways that potentially benefit the source.
This latest nugget also helps explain ESPN’s relative silence regarding the entire story. ESPN largely ignored it until it had no choice but to cover it. While some have suggested it’s a result of the NFL’s recent acquisition of a 10-percent stake in ESPN, it’s possible ESPN doesn’t want to face the question of what it knew, and when it knew it.
