{"id":843661,"date":"2026-03-30T21:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T21:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/843661\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T21:12:17","slug":"buccaneers-todd-bowles-reveals-3-word-message-on-mike-evans-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/843661\/","title":{"rendered":"Buccaneers’ Todd Bowles reveals 3-word message on Mike Evans move"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> knew they were facing an uphill task to keep receiver Mike Evans as the star weapon wanted to test the free agent market.<\/p>\n

And as such, Evans was picked up by the San Francisco 49ers<\/a>, ending his storied tenure with the Buccaneers to join Kyle Shanahan’s team.<\/p>\n

While the Buccaneers knew that Evans was most likely leaving, it doesn’t make it any easier when it becomes a reality.<\/p>\n

And for head coach Todd Bowles, it was still tough to say goodbye.<\/p>\n

“Oh man, that was tough,” Bowles said on\u00a0Good Morning Football\u00a0via NFL.com<\/a>. “He’s the best of the best on and off the field. I can’t say enough good things about him. They got a great one as they know, we know how great he was. Very hard to see him leave sentimentally and professionally from that standpoint for me and everybody else involved.”<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0ESPN hints at key Jets trade for Geno Smith<\/a><\/p>\n

Buccaneers fine without Evans?<\/p>\n

As odd as it sounds, the Buccaneers might actually be fine-ish without No. 13 on the field.<\/p>\n

Having had to get used to it last season as Evans dealt with injuries, the Bucs got a look at other players.<\/p>\n

Now, as we approach the new season, Chris Godwin, Emeka Egbuka, Jalen McMillan, and Tez Johnson make up Baker Mayfield’s weapons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, the Buccaneers aren’t short of weapons in the passing game for 2026, but it will still be hard to replace a player like Evans.<\/p>\n

More NFL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers knew they were facing an uphill task to keep receiver Mike Evans as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-843661","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-nfl","11":"tag-tampa-bay","12":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","13":"tag-tampabay","14":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843661","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=843661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}