{"id":908706,"date":"2026-06-03T08:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/908706\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T08:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:24:12","slug":"chris-godwin-thought-mike-evans-signing-with-49ers-was-product-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/908706\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Godwin thought Mike Evans signing with 49ers was product of AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 2, 2026, 9:36 p.m. PT<\/p>\n

The San Francisco 49ers<\/a>‘ offseason addition of wide receiver Mike Evans was such a stunner that one of Evans’ former teammates with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> thought it was a hoax.<\/p>\n

Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin told reporters he was convinced at first that the news of his teammate joining the 49ers in free agency was the product of artificial intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Honestly, I didn’t believe it,” Godwin said via ESPN’s Jenna Laine. “I mean, there’s a bunch of stuff on the internet that you can’t really believe, a lot of AI stuff. So I didn’t really believe it. And then I texted (Baker Mayfield). I was like, ‘Yo, is this for real?’ And he was like, ‘Sad face (emoji).'”<\/p>\n

Evans left the Bucs after 12 seasons in Tampa Bay and joined the 49ers on a three-year, $42.4 million contract early in the NFL’s legal negotiating window. He was a first-round pick in the 2014 draft and formed a formidable WR duo with Godwin throughout Godwin’s nine seasons as a pro.<\/p>\n

Now Evans will be in San Francisco where he’ll try to form a similar duo with either Ricky Pearsall or De’Zhaun Stribling.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s good news for the 49ers that the Evans news wasn’t fake news. They badly needed a lift to their receiving corps as evidenced by the Christian Kirk signing and Stribling pick in the draft that supplemented the Evans addition.<\/p>\n

Last season they had a hard time finding stability in the receiving corps, and now that group will be headlined by three new names as the 49ers look to rise back to prominence as a Super Bowl contender in the NFC.<\/p>\n

More 49ers: 49ers add veteran defensive back with 240 career tackles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 2, 2026, 9:36 p.m. PT The San Francisco 49ers‘ offseason addition of wide receiver Mike Evans was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[95878,211,7,6,119447,96189,96190,95882,96861,95946,97216,104574,95892,99565,95896,95888,95895,95897,96090,95883,96239,704,250,2597,2596,95881],"class_list":["post-908706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-accessfree","tag-buccaneers","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-sourceniners-wire","tag-sstssportsnflniners","tag-sstsnniners","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagbaker-mayfield","tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","tag-tagcgr-sports","tag-tagchris-godwin","tag-tagespn-inc","tag-tagmike-evans","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagsan-francisco-49ers","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabaybuccaneers","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908706","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=908706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}