Mike Evans took tall task of learning 49ers offense and made it look easy

Brock Purdy and Mac Jones have a running joke.

They first saw the joke on social media - a space professional athletes typically try to avoid. But sometimes, a viral meme is impossible to avoid. Especially when your team is 5-0.

Lately, the San Francisco 49ers' starting and backup quarterbacks have found amusement - and more than a hint of truth - in a thought that might consume a QB's brain when one particular future Hall of Fame wide receiver is on the field.

"F- it, Mike Evans is down there somewhere!"

Of course, that one-liner is an overly simplistic view of the 49ers' offense under head coach Kyle Shanahan. An offensive savant, Shanahan runs a complex system filled with pre-snap motion, nuanced route trees and unique play designs. He prides himself on outsmarting the opponent. He would never tell a quarterback to blindly throw a ball to a receiver, no matter the coverage he's facing or the separation he gained on his route.

Or would he?

Shanahan conceded Thursday - as much as it probably pained him to say - that when your team has a 6-foot-5 wideout with 35-inch arms and 4.5 speed such as Evans, the answer sometimes is this simple: throw it up to him, and expect him to come down with it.

General manager John Lynch said Friday on KNBR that it took some time for Shanahan to fully embrace the Evans experience. The coach has never been a "huge proponent" of 50/50 balls. 

Why not? "Because it is 50/50, typically," Lynch said. "But when we went out and made the commitment to go get Mike, we realized - Kyle realized - that has to become a bigger part of our offense."

This concept wasn't just foreign to Shanahan. He also had to convince Purdy, his detail-obsessed, process-oriented quarterback, that it's OK to rely on Evans, and Evans only, in specific contexts. 

"With the catch radius that he has, his body compared to DBs," Purdy said, "it's almost like when a tight end is matched up on a smaller DB and you know, ‘I just got to get the ball in this guy's vicinity, and he's gonna go up and get it.' I definitely feel that with him."

Purdy has since given Evans many 50/50 balls in important moments. For instance: The 49ers' final two scoring drives in their 32-29 win over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, when Evans caught four balls for 75 yards, plus converted a two-point conversion to lift his team to a win. Another example: Evans' goal-line touchdown in Australia against the Rams, a play Shanahan later said the 49ers had practiced just once at full speed.

"I remember always telling Brock and stuff, like: ‘Hey, there's times you're just going to sit there and wait, and Mike will get it done,'" Shanahan said as part of a gushy 90-second response about the connection between his quarterback and new wideout. "‘You don't need to progress, even if your feet tell you to. If the coverage doesn't go there, you just wait and give him time, because he'll come down with it.'"

Entering the summer, Shanahan said he felt Purdy and Evans were going to need extensive time on the field to build chemistry. But that didn't happen. Evans missed most of training camp with various injuries.

As it turns out, that didn't matter.

"It just shows how natural Mike is, how natural Brock is, and that it seems like they've been working on this stuff for a long time," Shanahan said.
On Thursday, Shanahan recalled approaching Purdy ahead of the 49ers' Week 1 win in Australia. 

"I was like, ‘Hey, all this stuff I asked you to work with Mike, like, are you guys there yet? Are you good? '" Shanahan said. "And I did that jokingly because I knew Mike hadn't had any reps in like two weeks, and Brock got all stressed. He's like, ‘Well, I haven't got to yet! ' And I was like, ‘I'm just joking, dude. Like, we've ran out of time. We'll see how it goes this week.'"

Here's how it went for Evans that week, and in the four weeks since: The six-time Pro Bowler has 24 catches, 326 yards and three touchdowns. Most notably, Evans has been the best late-down receiver in football, commanding a league-high 48.6% target share with a 64.7% success rate on third and fourth down, according to Sumer Sports.

"He gets open a lot more often than people realize," center Jake Brendel added. "Like, even if a (defender) is really running, he has the ability to create separation pretty fast within a couple steps."

Tight end George Kittle said Evans' presence has allowed Shanahan to open up his playbook because of his X-receiver capabilities. It has given Shanahan the freedom to call different plays than he has in the past, or, in the coach's words, "things that we weren't used to doing as much."

"He's been in the rodeo for a long time," Jones said of Evans. "I don't think the rodeo is, like, very… there's not a lot of tricks that he doesn't know. So, it's been cool to watch."

Beyond his on-field traits, Evans has brought elite professionalism to the 49ers' locker room. According to Brendel, Evans walked into the facility not long after signing and already knew the ins and outs of Shanahan's playbook, "which is super rare for a wide receiver."

"We had guys, for instance, that asked him a question about a schematic" in the offseason, Brendel said, "which I think is crazy. Like, this guy's been here for two weeks and you're asking him what route he's got on this?"

Well, did Evans have the answer?

"Oh, yeah," Brendel said. "He's automatic."

Not only did Evans quickly master Shanahan's offense; Jones said Evans suggested some of his own route concepts from Tampa Bay, where he played the first 12 seasons of his career and had 11 seasons of at least 1,000 yards. "All the receivers do that," Jones said, "but I think when you're Mike Evans, you can kind of have a couple more suggestions."

Kittle said Shanahan rarely needs to actually coach Evans. He just gets it off the bat.

"He'll install a play, and you might go run it in practice or even in the game," Kittle said. "It's like, ‘Oh, yeah, no coaching points. Great job, Mike.' … Or like, ‘Hey, we want you at a little bit wider (of an) aiming point.' He gets coached one time, and it's perfect the next time he does it."

There are few players in the NFL built like Evans, physically and mentally. Lynch and Shanahan knew that when they signed him in March to a three-year, $42 million contract. Does it surprise them, though, that it has gone this well this quickly?

"Yeah, a little bit," Shanahan said, before pondering for a moment. "I mean, yes and no. Mike has been so obviously that good to anybody who watches him, especially to me watching him over the years. He's always been right there as the best."

Friday offered perhaps the best example of how Evans, a known introvert who doesn't crave attention, has quickly endeared himself to his new teammates.

The 49ers' social media team crafted two Evans-themed T-shirts and handed them to players throughout the locker room. One shirt, featuring a picture of Evans in his red and white 49ers jersey, read: "If you're ever sad, just remember the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as MIKE EVANS." The other, a play on a popular scene from "Finding Nemo," showed Evans' face cut and pasted on top of 10 seagulls all screaming "Mike! Mike! Mike!" 

After practice, some of the 49ers' biggest stars, from Kittle to Trent Williams to Christian McCaffrey to Fred Warner, posed for pictures in their new T-shirts. With a child-like exuberance, they puffed their chests and offered wide smiles for one of their favorite teammates.

https://x.com/49ers/status/2111240407212519643?s=20

Asked Friday about Evans' reaction to the shirts, Williams let out a laugh before saying: "I don't know. I didn't ask him."

"(But) knowing Mike, it probably irritated him a little bit."

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This article originally published at Mike Evans took tall task of learning 49ers offense and made it look easy.