{"id":217103,"date":"2026-03-12T22:33:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T22:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217103\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T22:33:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T22:33:20","slug":"im-that-piece-san-francisco-was-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217103\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I&#8217;m that piece&#8217; San Francisco was missing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/mike-evans\/\" title=\"Mike Evans\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Evans<\/a>&#8216; departure from Tampa Bay sent <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/mike-evans-to-sign-with-49ers-ending-12-year-tenure-with-buccaneers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shockwaves through the region<\/a> and inspired the same in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s happy, too, because San Francisco is where he wanted to be.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel like they were one piece away, and I&#8217;m that piece,&#8221; Evans said during his introductory press conference Thursday in Santa Clara, Calif.<\/p>\n<p>Evans&#8217; logic, while initially surprising, makes plenty of sense. He wanted to join a contender (San Francisco finished 12-5 in 2025), considered &#8220;teams with good quarterbacks&#8221; (hello, <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/brock-purdy\/\" title=\"Brock Purdy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brock Purdy<\/a>), and because he&#8217;s a fan of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan&#8217;s offensive approach, Evans landed on San Francisco as his top destination.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was always going to be hard to leave Tampa,&#8221; the wide receiver admitted. &#8220;Football-wise, this was the best spot for me for sure. I&#8217;ve always appreciated how the Niners went about their business on the football field.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Evans&#8216; departure from Tampa Bay sent shockwaves through the region and inspired the same in the Bay&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2502,28086,90113,100,2503,101,296,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-217103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-around-the-nfl","tag-free-agency","tag-mike-evans","tag-news","tag-no-minute","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}