New Contract Details For Buccaneers' Mike Evans Revealed
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers officially agreed to terms on a two-year deal on Mar. 4, but as is usually the case with big contracts, the initial reported salary wasn't the whole story.
Evans was given a two-year deal with a max of $52 million dollars, though $11 million of that is incentivized and he gets quite a bit of the guaranteed money as a signing bonus. We went over that a bit in our previous article about Evans' deal, but NFL reporter Aaron Wilson reported on Thursday that the deal naturally comes with some other stipulations and some void years tacked on to alleviate some of the cap hits early on.
Wilson reported that his signing bonus of $21.79 million, set in the form of roster bonuses, is split up. He'll get the first $10 million on the fifth day of the 2024 season and then the remaining $11.79 million on April 4, 2024. Both roster bonuses are listed for "skill and injury", and Evans is certain to get those guarantees.
Additionally, the deal has void years tacked on from 2026 to 2028. Void years are empty years on a contract that allows a team to split up dead money in greater increments, and they all trigger unless a team can re-sign that player before they all activate. As it stands, Evans would cost the Bucs $13 million in dead cap starting from 2026, and Tampa Bay would take that money on if it was unable to sign Evans to a deal before free agency then.
Since Evans will be 33 years old before the start of the 2026 season, it will be interesting to see what the Bucs do depending on how he plays on this current deal. Until then, though, the structure of Evans' contract allows Tampa Bay to suffer a low cap hit for 2024 with an opportunity to bring more players back.
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