Following their Super Bowl LVIII win over the San Francisco 49ers, the Kansas City Chiefs’ focus shifted to revamping
the top half of their wide receiver room. General manager Brett Veach undoubtedly weighed plenty of options,
ultimately landing on Marquise “Hollywood” Brown in free agency and Xavier Worthy in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Speaking to NFL Network at Tampa Bay Buccaneers training camp, Evans
explained that he’s a huge fan of how Patrick Mahomes plays. That factored
into the Chiefs being a franchise that piqued the former first-round pick’s interest.
“I mean, I’ve been here my whole career,” Evans said. “And that was a goal
of mine, honestly. I mean, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking Houston, Kansas
City – I love Pat Mahomes’s game. I’m thinking those two teams, obviously, and I’m obviously thinking the Bucs. It
would’ve been extremely hard, if I hit free agency, to leave here. This is where my family knows, my kids were born here, my wife’s been here a long time –
she doesn’t want to pack it up and move everything. So really, her decision is the reason why I decided to stay. She loves t
his place and I obviously love this place but when she gave me the go-ahead like, ‘We should stay here,’ no-brainer.”
The rest is history, of course, as Evans wound up avoiding free agency altogether. Right before the start of it, he
and Tampa Bay reached an agreement on a new two-year contract. That took
the wind out of any sails hoping for a union with Kansas City, later sending
Veach and Co. in another direction. Considering how much smoke there was for an Evans-Chiefs partnership making
sense in March, it’s interesting to hear him flat-out admit so.
Apparently, there was almost another choice on the table for the back-to-back champs. Five-time Pro Bowler Mike
Evans recently admitted that had he ended up on the free agent market,
Kansas City was at or near the top of his list of teams to join.