Defensive tackle Christian Wilkins is off the market. Wilkins’ agent David Mulugheta told reporters that Wilkins has agreed to sign with the Raiders. It is reported to be a four-year, $110 million deal with $84.75 million in guarantees, although the full structure of those guarantees and the rest of the pact remain unknown. Wilkins spent five years with the Dolphins after being drafted 13th overall in 2019, but was unable to come to an agreement on a new deal in Miami and the team passed on tagging him earlier this month. He had a career-high nine sacks last season and has appeared in every game over the last three seasons. The Raiders will be looking for the same kind of durability and production as Wilkins slots in alongside Maxx Crosby on their defensive front.
LOL, good luck getting the same kind of production from Wilkins as Crosby. $27.5M per year? That's mental, absolutely mental for Wilkins. I loved watching his motor, how great a team mate he was and how good he was at pulling Josh Allen's junk but he is absolutely not a game changer on defence which that kind of money should be reserved for.
They could have tagged him if they wanted to but they didn't want to pay him $22M for the year and now it's obvious he would have never have signed here as there is no way he is worth $27.5M per season. Tagging him would just have left an unhappy player and probably salary cap issues down the line as the restructures would have needed to be aggressive. Also re-signing Wilkins probably means Phillips would have been gone instead in a couple of years and it's an easy one for me who to keep out of those 2.
Defence is going to be terrible.Not only was he a really good player he is the rare durable player we had on the team. Phillips coming off Achilles,Chubb late December ACL and now Wilkins. And who knows about Van Ginkel.
Good for Big Chris. God bless him in his new adventure. We should have extended him before last season.
His guaranteed is 21.19m. It would have left an unhappy player but one then you could perhaps trade or get better compensation than the 3rd rounder you are now going to get. That's the point. There's going to be a lot of difficult choices down the road with this cap situation.
If Brandon Jones can somehow get $7.5M per year then yeah, AVG is gone. Someone is going to give him $10M per year at this rate.
Some are a lot worse than others. Also means you aren't drafting all that well. Can't keep hiding that. Can't keep trading picks away and going with vets. All these chickens come home to roost.
Best part of this offseason will be the people that say the team sucks because Grier can't draft while also saying the team sucks because they lost players Grier drafted.
Letting Wilkins leave the franchise with zero compensation is a fireable offense for a gm given the talent and ability of Wilkins. Yet Christ Grier still remains. That’s an autocorrect typo by my phone, but sure seems fitting
That's damning with faint praise. And Wilkins and Van Ginkel played nearly the whole season, right? So we sucked with them and we'll suck without them.
The Dolphins offered Wilkins a fair market contract, as stated by himself, last off-season and he turned it down. He then actually got some sacks for once in his career and got tremendously overpaid. Good for him.
Yep. You just can’t pay a guy that much money and them not be a game changer. Aaron Donald, yes, but not a guy who produces about 1/5th the sacks, way less tackles and QB hits. And don’t take that wrong… I love Wilkins, think he’s a great player, but he’s not a game changer.
The Wilkins contract... https://overthecap.com/player/christian-wilkins/7804 Cap hits of 11.5M this year then 35M, 31.75M, 31.75M. Next season he is being paid what you pay your QB, I want no part of that. He's just not worth that unless he can magically increase his sack and pressure count by 50% over what he did last season.
I meant the $35M cap hit. It would be a few years before we see that with Tua as with these big QB contracts you just keep kicking the can down the road until the salary cap goes up enough that the hit is palatable. The Bills just restructured Allen's cap hit of $47M down to $30M for this year. So since his 6 years, $258M extension he has had cap hits of $10M, $16M, $18M, and now $30M. He's on the books for $60M next year but he has $16.5M of that guaranteed salary and a $25M roster bonus which will likely be converted to signing bonus and spread out over the length of his contract to bring his cap hit next year down to under $40M again. So yeah, Wilkins is being paid like a QB from next year.
No he’s not and like I said if Tua gets that kind money, sign me up. Wilkins is getting paid to much imo, but that’s not QB money and posting that on here to ridicule posters doesn’t make it anymore true…
Eh? I'm not posting that to ridicule anything, what are you talking about? I'm posting it because Christian Wilkins has a $35M cap hit next season and that kind of cap hit is usually reserved for a QB. Next year he will have the 18th highest cap charge in the NFL. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/2025/cap-hit/ I was merely pointing out just how much the Raiders have overpaid and just how monumentally stupid Grier would have to be to have matched it.
I don’t think there are many people on here who think that the Raiders didn’t overpay for Wilkins. Still it’s not QB money and if Tua gets that kind of money, sign me up.
