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Buccaneers sign Mike Evans to four-year contract

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have their first-round pick under contract.

By Sander Philipse
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have signed first-round pick Mike Evans to a four-year contract with a fifth-year option, the team announced. The Bucs selected Evans with the seventh overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft. That contract structure is mandated by the 2011 collective bargaining agreement.

That same 2011 CBA included an effective rookie wage scale, which allows Over The Cap to be highly accurate in estimating these contracts. They estimate that the Texas A&M prospect will receive a four-year, $14,631,500 contract with a $8,961,092 signing bonus. He'll receive base salaries of $420,000 in 2014, $1,085,068 in 2015, $1,750,136 in 2016 and $2,415,204 in 2017. Update: numbers confirmed by Ian Rapoport.

All of Evans' contract will almost certainly be guaranteed, although it will also likely contain offset language, which means that were he to be cut, any contract he subsequently signs with another team will offset payments the Bucs will have to make to the wide receiver.

Evans' fifth-year option will have to be lifted after his third season in the league, and will be the equivalent of a transition tag. For comparison's sake, the wide receiver transition tag this year comes in at $10.1 million, per ESPN.

The Bucs have yet to sign second-round pick Austin Seferian-Jenkins or third-round pick Charles Sims, but that's likely to come fairly soon.

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