The San Francisco 49ers needed a splash at wide receiver and they got one this offseason, signing Mike Evans to a three-year, $42 million deal to pry the veteran away from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Evans, one of the most accomplished wide receivers of the last 10 years, had his most injury-riddled campaign in 2025, being sidelined to just eight games after playing in at least 13 and recording 1,000 yards in every season of his career prior.
Still, the 49ers were in dire need of an upgrade at receiver after a disappointing showing from the position group last year, and the 32-year-old Evans is easily the most accomplished and reliable weapon in the room now.
At 6’5, 231 pounds, Evans is not the traditional receiver that Kyle Shanahan has employed on the boundary in San Francisco. In fact, according to ESPN, Shanahan has only had four 6’5 receivers that have taken significant snaps for him across his coaching career: Evans, Jauan Jennings, Julio Jones, and Josh Gordon. And Jennings was primarily a slot receiver during his time in San Francisco.
That’s what makes the pairing of Evans and Shanahan so intriguing in 2026.
“[Evans is] 6-foot-5 and 231 pounds with 35⅛-inch arms,” ESPN’s Ben Solak wrote. “Shanahan himself said this offseason, “I’ve never been around a guy that is that tall with that long of arms.” And Evans will use that frame in the most obvious manner: to win jump balls in contested, red zone opportunities. Over the past three seasons, Evans is third in total receiving touchdowns on plays inside the 10-yard line. Those are all tight-window plays, too, as 52.2% of the targets have come with no separation. He’s a ball winner.
“But it’s easy to pigeonhole Evans as a slow-footed skyscraper who is just trying to box out and win rebounds. Not so. What has made Evans such a unique and spectacular talent over his long NFL career is how well he runs routes at his size.
“Across the past two seasons, during which he has contended with both his own injuries and a hampered Baker Mayfield, Evans is third in yards per route run on deep in-breaking routes — the digs and crossers around which Shanahan’s offense is built. Once he’s in that area, that huge catch radius and towering frame make for an easy target. It’s hard for closing safeties to address the catch point with physicality the way they do against smaller receivers.”
Where Evans excels is also where Brock Purdy has done well over the past few seasons, which should help the explosive play rate climb for the 49ers in 2026. Solak compared Evans’s work with Liam Coen, a Sean McVay disciple, in 2024 to how the wideout could be used in Shanahan’s offense this season.
“We got a peek at how Evans might be deployed in the Shanahan offense in 2024 when he played for Liam Coen. In that season, Evans set a career high for the rate at which he ran routes from the slot. He also set a career high for reception rate, as he got more easy targets from those slot alignments. And he set a career high for yards per route run (2.63) in large part because of the increased catch rate. Evans had always been a far more productive player against single-high defenses (it’s one-on-one outside … throw to the back-shoulder ball), but in that one year with Coen, he saw a huge spike in production against two-high defenses given the new usage.”
“Evans is two years older and a couple of injuries removed from that great 2024 season. But his game was never predicated on elite suddenness, and he remains functionally explosive given how quickly his big strides eat up turf. Even if Evans is physically limited, he would still remain a jump-ball specialist and introduce a new red zone and third-down threat to an always scary 49ers offense. But if he remains at the same level as he was the past two seasons, he can be a three-level receiver with a bigger catch radius than anyone Shanahan has ever called plays for. And with so many other pass-catching options (Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Ricky Pearsall, Christian Kirk, De’Zhaun Stribling), Evans’ volume can be managed such that he’s fresh come the postseason.”
Evans does provide that red-zone threat, which should only make the 49ers more dangerous once George Kittle comes back. That’s an area the 49ers excelled in a few years ago, and Evans, Kittle, and Christian McCaffrey should be a dangerous trio in that area in 2026 again.
But Evans will be able to be moved across the formation and give the 49ers a dangerous weapon on the boundary, which can also open up some more things over the middle of the field.
He must stay healthy, which has sometimes been a problem, but Evans could be the key that brings the 49ers back to having one of the most efficient passing offenses in the NFL.
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