Bucs 3-Year Outlook: WR

Tampa Bay has had two of the better wide receivers in the NFL for going on six seasons now, and the team surely doesn’t want that to change any time soon. Mike Evans is entering a contract year as of now, but an extension for the nine-time 1,000-yard receiver and four-time Pro Bowler is coming at some point soon. He figures to be locked in past this three-year window we’re talking about, and he’ll be given the chance to build on his resume as the Bucs’ top offensive player of all time.

As for the 1B to Evans’ 1A, Chris Godwin signed a three-year deal with the team when he hit free agency last offseason. In 2022, he bounced back nicely from the torn ACL that he suffered the prior December, and he should be fully back to himself in 2023. Barring an extension, his contract will expire after the 2024 season.

Russell Gage is set to play the second year of the three-year deal he signed with the Bucs last offseason, though he took a substantial pay cut from $10 million to $7 million, and will need look to hit some incentives this season to rack up $3 million he lost. He is a free agent after 2024 as well, but the team could move on from him after this season with no dead cap hit if he disappoints again.

Regarding the rest of the Bucs’ wide receivers, the picture isn’t so clear. They aren’t tied to anyone else at the position in the long term. Trey Palmer, the team’s sixth-round draft pick this year, is likely to be Tampa Bay’s WR4 as a rookie. But how long he sticks around will depend on what he shows in his debut. The same can be said for Deven Thompkins, Kaylon Geiger Sr., David Moore and a host of undrafted free agents. In just a year or two, this wide receiving corps is bound to look pretty different.

How This Year Impacts 2024 & 2025

In the immediate future, the contract extension Mike Evans is bound to sign will provide a better idea as to what the Bucs’ wide receiver room will look like in two or three years. As long as he’s around in red and pewter, his name will be atop the team’s depth chart in Sharpie, circled three times in permanent paint while underlined in even more permanent paint. What Chris Godwin does this season is unlikely to move anything one way or the other. He’ll be around in 2024 regardless, but it’s next year (and the following offseason) that will determine his future in Tampa.

Where things really get interesting with the 2023 receiving corps is behind Evans and Godwin. Russell Gage was a letdown in 2022, struggling with a hamstring injury from training camp throughout much of the season. His effectiveness was limited as a result, though he did finish the season on a stronger note by hauling in some touchdowns. He finished the season with five, leaving him one behind Evans for the team lead. But he averaged a career-low 8.4 yards per catch and it took a pay cut for him to even make it to year two of his three-year contract.

Gage is in need of a bounce-back year, and it’s already gotten off to a rough start. He missed OTAs and mini-camp with an injury, and while he could take mental reps to adjust to Dave Canales’ offense, he’s missed out on time to work with quarterbacks Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask. If injuries remain a problem for Gage and/or he just doesn’t live up to his status as the Bucs’ WR3, he may not be around in 2024. Tampa Bay can move on from the veteran receiver next offseason and enjoy some cap savings, so the 27-year-old is up against it.

Trey Palmer has the type of speed Tampa Bay has been missing, but as a sixth-round pick, he doesn’t have enough invested in him to make him a slam-dunk long-term certainty for the Bucs. He, along with Deven Thompkins, Kaylon Geiger, David Moore and a number of others will jockey for positioning on the 2023 depth chart, and how they perform this year will decide what Tampa Bay needs in the future.

3-Year Outlook: Bucs Wide Receivers

Where Mike Evans fits into the three-year outlook depends on the length of his contract extension. He turns 30 in August, and he’s shown no signs of slowing down in the last couple of years. His production is bound to remain even with a change at the quarterback position (the man surpassed 1,000 yards during a 2-14 season quarterbacked by Josh McCown and Mike Glennon). His new contract may very well take him past 2025 and beyond this three-year window, but at the very least it should take him through 2025.

Chris Godwin is less of a sure thing. He only signed a three-year deal as a free agent in 2022, and that was coming off of a torn ACL the year before. He got a nice contract from the Bucs, sure, but if 2023 and 2024 are big years for the former Penn Stater, he may command even more when he hits the free agent market again in March of 2025. He’ll still only be 29 at that point, so if another team wants to come along and pay him big money to be their WR1, it’s at least possible he moves on.

Russell Gage’s future with the Bucs looks bleak. Unless he turns things around in a big way this season, he’s unlikely to be around in 2024. It’s even less likely that he’ll be with Tampa Bay in 2025. Trey Palmer and the rest of Tampa Bay’s depth receivers have a lot to prove over the next year or two in order to have Bucs decision-makers feeling content with the position going into the future.

It’s more than likely that the team will be in the market for a young receiver or two in the early rounds of the next couple of drafts. Evans is only going to play for so long and with Godwin set for free agency again in two offseasons, Tampa Bay will need to start finding its next wave of top receivers. Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka, Texas’ Xavier Worthy, LSU’s Malik Nabers, USC’s Mario Williams and Florida State’s Johnny Wilson are among the draft class of 2024 receivers to know, according to Pro Football Focus.

Three-Year Outlook Summary

In three years, the Bucs’ wide receiver room is likely to look very different. The position doesn’t have a lot of depth as it is right now, and a lot hinges on Russell Gage bouncing back this season. Whether he does or not, though, Tampa Bay will need to start rebuilding — or at least retooling — its receiving corps in the next year to two years.

Best-case, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are still around in 2025 and the team has a couple of young up-and-comers ready to take over the torch when needed. But with Godwin not being a sure thing past his three-year deal, it’s important that some talented youth is injected into the room soon.