San Francisco didn't sign Mike Evans this offseason to watch him from the trainer's table. The 49ers gave the 33-year-old a 3-year, $42.4 million deal to walk away from Tampa Bay after a 12-year run that included six Pro Bowls and a stretch of 1,000-yard seasons most receivers never sniff. Pairing him with Brock Purdy and Kyle Shanahan's offense was supposed to be the easy part. Instead, camp has been a string of nagging setbacks.
Evans already sat out San Francisco's first two preseason games while the team managed a handful of minor injuries. Now it's a groin issue that's kept him off the practice field, and per ESPN's Jeremy Fowler, that one is considered minor too, barring any change.
49ers WR Mike Evans (groin) plans to play Week 1, per @JFowlerESPN
The report matters because of what's actually at stake in Week 1. The 49ers open the 2026 season against the Rams in Melbourne, Australia on September 10, the NFL's first-ever regular season game Down Under. That's not a spot where San Francisco wants its new No. 1 receiver rusty from missing snaps all camp, or worse, reaggravating something on the other side of the world.
That backdrop is exactly why fantasy analysts are hedging before Evans has even played a real snap in a 49ers uniform. Yahoo Fantasy's Josh & Hayden flagged the obvious concern: it's one thing to say you plan to play, it's another to handle a full route tree and workload after missing most of camp.
The biggest question surrounding Mike Evans in San Francisco is whether he can handle a meaningful workload 😬
None of this is panic-worthy on its own. Veteran receivers get load-managed through camp all the time, and Evans has a long track record of showing up when it counts. But a groin injury stacked on top of an already-thin preseason sample size is the kind of thing that keeps him a game-time watch heading into a season opener nobody on the 49ers wants to get wrong.