The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are currently 3-0 on the season heading into a big Week 4 showdown without wide receiver Mike Evans. Tampa Bay gets a tough assignment on Sunday at home, going up against Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley and the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
Evans has been one of the big go-to targets for quarterback Baker Mayfield. His injury situation has been one both Buccaneers fans and fantasy football players have been watching intently.
Will Mike Evans Play on Sunday?
Quite bluntly, no. Evans will not be on the field to catch passes from Mayfield on Sunday.
In fact, the Buccaneers said earlier in the week that Evans would be out multiple weeks with his injured hamstring.
It’s just awful news for Tampa Bay, who has hopes of staying unbeaten even when facing such a talented team in the Eagles. Evans was a first-round draft pick by Tampa Bay out of Texas A&M in the 2014 NFL Draft.
In 12-plus seasons, all with the Buccaneers, Evans has 850 career receptions for 12,824 receiving yards and 106 touchdown catches. Even at age 32, Evans is quite a long-ball threat for the Buccaneers, having recorded 16 catches of 20+ yards since the start of the 2024 season.
This hamstring injury is going to force Evans to focus on his health at this time. The Buccaneers will have to focus on winning games with Mayfield targeting other receivers.
Fantasy Football Outlook for Evans
With Evans out, how will this affect fantasy football players and their teams at this time? PFSN’s Kyle Soppe offers some thoughts about Evans’ current situation.
“There are some instances where a productive player goes down with an injury, and I’ll encourage you to buy at a discount,” Soppe wrote.
“Opportunities like this present themselves all the time as a manager is holding a distressed asset because of their standing in your league and is looking, for lack of a better way to say it, to make a bad deal,” Soppe wrote. “To take pennies now for a dollar in the future. This isn’t that.
“Evans missed three games a season ago, and these soft-tissue injuries always come with aggravation risk,” Soppe wrote. “We haven’t seen the future Hall of Famer reach 60 receiving yards in a game this season, and I’m not sure that changes in a meaningful way when he returns to the field.”
