The 49ers’ offseason has been easy to miss from the outside, but one move in particular has the kind of weight that gets Hall of Famers talking. Mike Evans is now in San Francisco, and Jerry Rice and Larry Fitzgerald both sounded convinced the wideout could be a major problem for defenses in 2026.
Evans arrives with a résumé that already puts him in rare company. He’s a Super Bowl champion, and in 2024 he matched Rice’s record with his 11th straight 1,000-yard receiving season. That run ended in 2025 after Evans dealt with a hamstring strain early in the year and later broke his collarbone.
Rice said he was disappointed to see the streak stop because of injury.
"I got to meet him in a commercial, then I would follow him because I think we both had seasons where we had over 1,000 yards for 11 of 13 times, or something like that," Rice said. "It was just unfortunate that he got hurt because he had a good chance of breaking my record. And if anybody was going to break my record, I would have loved him to do it."
Fitzgerald was just as glowing, and he made it clear why Evans fits so naturally into what Kyle Shanahan wants to do.
"I think he's the most underrated receiver of this generation. You'd be hard pressed to find anybody who has been more consistently productive than he has.
He's a Super Bowl champion," Fitzgerald said, per Vic Tafur of The Athletic. "Now you team him with Kyle Shanahan, one of the greatest offensive minds we have in our game, and that's pretty scary."
The 49ers have spent plenty of the offseason in the background while other NFC headlines grabbed the spotlight, including the Seattle Seahawks winning Super Bowl LX, the Los Angeles Rams trading for Myles Garrett and the Arizona Cardinals taking Jeremiah Love with the No. 3 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. But if Evans gets back to his usual level, San Francisco’s wide receiver room could become one of the league’s most dangerous storylines fast.
That’s especially true with Brandon Aiyuk still making noise on social media as he tries to force his way out of the Bay Area. For now, though, the bigger football story is the one Rice and Fitzgerald are pointing to: a proven star landing in Shanahan’s offense, with both legends warning that the rest of the NFC West may want to pay attention.
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