Christian Wilkins has certainly obtained his monster contract in free company and his time with the Miami Dolphins is over.
Wilkins agreed to phrases with the Las Vegas Raiders for 4 years with a base worth of $110 that features $84.75 million assured, per a number of studies.
The deal averages $27.5 million per 12 months, which is $5.5 million greater than the Dolphins must assure in the event that they signed him to the franchise.
If there's one optimistic be aware for the Dolphins, it's that Wilkins may very effectively produce a third-round compensatory decide within the 2025 NFL Draft relying on his enjoying time and accolades.
It must also be famous that Wilkins will seem at Arduous Rock Stadium in 2024 with the Raiders scheduled to play in Miami.
With the Raiders, Wilkins will likely be reunited along with his first NFL defensive coordinator, Patrick Graham, who’s in the identical position in Las Vegas. Moreover, Raiders D-line coach Rob Leonard was an assistant with the Dolphins from 2019-21.
WILKINS' STICKY SITUATION
What’s going to occur to Wilkins has been a sizzling matter concerning the Dolphins since final summer season, when the group and the participant had been unable to agree on a long-term contract extension.
Even with Wilkins ending his coaching camp hold-in, his contract standing remained a cloud over the franchise, and questions arose as as to whether the group may work out an extension after the tip of final season and whether or not the group would use the franchise tag.
The Dolphins' sticky cap scenario made it tough to signal Wilkins, and paying what the Raiders ended up giving him would severely hamper their skill to signal gamers this offseason.
It's no much less disappointing for the group to lose a core piece, the primary actual addition at the beginning of the 2019 rebuilding undertaking and the chief of the protection.
Wilkins has completed nothing however enhance every year for the Dolphins, complementing his always-solid run protection with an affect to the tune of 9 profession sacks.
His departure will clearly go away a giant void in the midst of the line of defense, particularly since he was additionally extraordinarily sturdy along with being productive.
In 5 seasons with the Dolphins, Wilkins has missed simply two video games, each in 2020 and each as a result of he was positioned on the COVID-19 listing.
Moreover, Wilkins has accomplished greater than 80 p.c of the defensive snaps in every of the final two seasons, a exceptional feat for an inside defensive lineman.
Merely put, Wilkins checked all of the containers for the kind of participant the Dolphins would need long-term, and that grew to become a matter of constructing choices about cap, positional worth and long-term planning.
Backside line, Christian Wilkins is finished with the Miami Dolphins after 5 seasons.
