Buccaneers

The agent for Buccaneers veteran WR Mike Evans, Deryk Gilmore, said that Evans plans to investigate his options in free agency. 

“I just think that he basically wants to look at all 32 teams,” Gilmore said, via Pewter Report. “I can’t go out here and say, ‘Oh, yeah. We’re looking for a new team.’ I mean, that hasn’t been the mindset here. We basically just want to do an analysis. When you’re making a business decision, you want to sit down, go through, do your checks and balances, make sure you evaluate everything you do, and then from there, when you’re making a decision, you’re not making an emotional decision. I think that’s what we’re trying to do. In the same way, we did that last time. We didn’t make an emotional decision, and he ended back up in Tampa.”

“I think this is a young man who loves, more than most fans probably understand, he loves to compete and to win. He loves to compete and to win,” Gilmore added. “This is not him sitting there saying, ‘I want to get paid’ and all that stuff. You always want to get paid what you’re worth. But that’s not going to be on the [forefront]. We want to sit down and go through and be like, ‘OK, where can he accomplish all his goals?’ Which would be to win a Super Bowl, to break records. That’s gonna be extremely important. The offense. For him to know that whoever is gonna be his play-caller, whoever is gonna be his coordinator, whoever is gonna be his quarterback, that they have the ability to really thrive and make things happen. We want to make sure that if something breaks down, we have a quarterback who is hopefully mature or experienced or has a history of winning. Someone who knows how to… I’ve looked at some of these quarterbacks out here. Some of them throw some really great balls. I really haven’t studied anybody prior to this. Now I have. I think that’s going to be important to Mike. That wherever he ends up, he can accomplish everything. But I will tell you this: There’s no reason that Tampa can’t hit every component that we want to hit.”

• According to JoeBucsFan.com, reports indicate that LB Lavonte David underwent arthroscopic knee surgery after the 2025 season.

Buccaneers

Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles is excited to see what else WR Jalen McMillan can prove after returning from a broken neck late in the season.

“He is a very talented guy and he is a very passionate guy,” Bowles said of McMillan, per the team website. “I think he fits in great with the receiver room and he is a workhorse. He comes out to work everyday and I think he has some great football ahead of him.”

“I was just happy to see him come back,” Bowles added.  “There was a point in the season where I did not know if he would come back and then if he came back, I did not know if he would have the jitters, especially with the neck injury. I think the first game back he took a vicious hit and kind of fell on his neck and he got up like nothing happened and then I was happy after that.”

Panthers

Panthers HC Dave Canales spoke to reporters about what he hopes to see regarding continued growth from QB Bryce Young.

“Just continue to pour into our system, our concepts, the ownership of it,” Canales said, via Kassidy Hill of Panthers.com. “I love the strides we’ve taken in terms of the operation, how he gets us up there, makes great calls, fixes our protection problems, finding solutions in areas where we’ve talked about to take advantage of coverages, takes advantage of different fronts for run plays, and just wanting Bryce to continue to grow in the ownership of those things. Because there are more opportunities for Bryce to affect the game at the line of scrimmage, and I want to continue to build off of that.”

“He saw a particular coverage and got us to an explosive play to Jalen Coker down the field, and it was the study,” Canales added. “It was the understanding. It was getting out of the huddle in a timely fashion and being able to seize a moment. I want more moments like that for Bryce.”