{"id":820176,"date":"2026-03-19T00:46:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T00:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/820176\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T00:46:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T00:46:28","slug":"mike-evans-took-less-money-to-join-49ers-in-nfl-free-agency-nbc-sports-bay-area-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/820176\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Evans took less money to join 49ers in NFL free agency \u2013 NBC Sports Bay Area & California"},"content":{"rendered":"

Money doesn’t buy everything.<\/p>\n

At least not for veteran wide receiver Mike Evans<\/a>, who signed with the 49ers in free agency<\/a> after spending his entire 12-year NFL career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.<\/p>\n

Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht spoke publicly to the media about Evans’ departure for the first time on Wednesday, stating he doesn’t feel “betrayed” by Evans’ decision.<\/p>\n

Licht also revealed that Evans accepted less money to pack his bags and move West to join the 49ers this offseason, adding that he believes the 32-year-old simply wanted “a new challenge.”<\/p>\n

Evans won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay in 2020, but the team failed to defend its title or get past the divisional round of the playoffs in the seasons following.<\/p>\n

Litch stated that he felt “like we did everything we could” to convince Evans to stay in Tampa.<\/p>\n

“We made a significantly higher offer [than the 49ers] and that was just the first offer,” Licht said\u00a0(h\/t ESPN’s Jenna Laine<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But perhaps 49ers star tight end George Kittle’s words were more persuasive<\/a> than the dollar signs.<\/p>\n

While speaking to Bay Area media for the first time via Zoom last week, Evans revealed that Kittle was the “biggest salesman” who convinced him to sign with San Francisco.<\/p>\n

“George sold it big time,” Evans said. “He’s a big reason why I’m here, because of the type of player and teammate he is.”<\/p>\n

It appears figuratively and literally that Kittle’s words are priceless.<\/p>\n

Download and follow the 49ers Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Money doesn’t buy everything. At least not for veteran wide receiver Mike Evans, who signed with the 49ers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,7,700,6,2592,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-820176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-mike-evans","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-nfl-free-agency","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116253084370715908","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}