One of the more bizarre contract stories comes out of Las Vegas with the Raiders publicly announcing the release of DT Christian Wilkins from a $110 million contract with nearly $83 million in guarantees signed just a year ago. Wilkins had been injured last season and should have over $35 million in injury protection but the Raiders are voiding all guarantees in the contract due to issues with how he has treated his rehab process, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The union will file a grievance on Wilkins behalf to recover that money
The whole situation regarding Wilkins comes across as odd. The team converted over $20 million of Wilkins salary into a roster bonus back in February for salary cap relief which was paid out in late March. Clearly at the time the Raiders and Wilkins were on the same page regarding his injury. Sometime in early June, the Raiders must have told Wilkins that if he did not have a second surgery on his foot that he would have the remaining guarantees on his contract voided. Here is the statement from the Raiders regarding the release:
We have decided that it is in the best interests of the organization to move on from Christian Wilkins and he has been informed of his release from the team. This franchise has a Commitment to Excellence on and off the field. With no clear path or plan for future return to play from Christian, this transaction is necessary for the entire organization to move forward and prepare for the new season.
Essentially the Raiders argument seems to be that Wilkins is not following the rehab treatment that was given to him by the team physician and is not making a good faith effort to play. Players always have the right to a 2nd opinion but reading between the lines of the team’s statement regarding his release, it seems that he did not provide a satisfactory rehab plan to the team without obtaining another medical procedure. All of the guarantees in Raiders contracts require a player to follow “reasonable and customary rehabilitation or treatment” in order to have the guarantee stand. By not following such a plan the player would be in default and the guaranteed protection would vanish. With those guarantees voided and Wilkins in no condition to play football, the Raiders would be able to release him due to injury.
This whole issue seems suspect on the part of the Raiders. Wilkins is clearly hurt. He was clearly following a rehab plan as of March. He had his salary guaranteed in 2025 and 2026. He reportedly was at OTAs. He didn’t commit a crime or refuse to show up to camp. Was there simply no follow up on his end (essentially finding a credible medical opinion that surgery is not required) that would allow the Raiders to do this on effectively a technicality? Did he refuse to submit to physician exams at the teams request in another technical breach?
If the Raiders are successful with their voiding of guarantees here it really does open a can of worms for some players to deal with. A few months ago, Derek Carr declined surgery while on the Saints despite a large guarantee on his salary. Carr was not certain he wanted to play in 2026 (or 2025 for that matter) and there were some concerns the surgery was not going to allow him to play even if he wanted to do so. Carr opted to decline the surgery and voluntarily retire, giving up around $30 million in the process.
While it is certainly Wilkins responsibility to do everything in his power to return to playing football there should be questions about what the likelihood is of such surgeries being successful and if the probabilities are very low and risks outweigh the rewards the injury guarantee really should be honored. That is not to say that this is the case here or with Carr but seeing back to back contracts put in jeopardy due to potential surgery is a bit alarming.
Wilkins’ salary cap charge at the moment should drop from $18.137 million to $9.925 million. Next year it will drop from $37.6 million to $29.775 million. That is all dead money associated with the two bonuses that he received from the Raiders. The next question is what cap charges will there be from the grievance, if any?
Typically, when a player files a grievance against a team, 40% of the grievance counts against the salary cap. That would be a significant charge. However, it sounds as if the grievance filed by the NFLPA is a non-injury grievance that was related to the interpretation of the default language in the contract not a standard injury grievance that would be filed after a player was released. In this case, a financial award is likely not being sought at the moment so my guess is that there will be no charge until that grievance is resolved. If Wilkins wins the grievance then his cap number will increase by $35.25 million which will have the Raiders scrambling for cap room.
The other possibility in all of this is that the Raiders are simply looking for an alternative way out of a bad contract that was showing less and a less chance having any return. The signing of Wilkins to a contract of this magnitude was questionable at best and the GM who spearheaded the signing has been replaced. Sometimes when you are trying to change the culture around a team, one of the worst things is a player on a bloated contract that you do not see playing in the future.
During the grievance process the sides will engage in settlement discussions and perhaps the Raiders hope here is simply that they can settle for pennies on the dollar and that Wilkins would rather have closure about this rather than have things drag out. While nothing has been reported about him possibly being open to forfeiture of the large bonus he was paid earlier this year perhaps they will argue that Wilkins breached his contract rather than just defaulting his guarantees and that could open up the chance of recovering some of that salary. That could lead to a settlement of keeping the bonus or perhaps his full salary for 2025 while avoiding any responsibility for money in 2026. That would, in the grand scheme of things, be a win for the Raiders. The Raiders really have little to lose going this route since they owed him a bunch of guaranteed salary and if they can get out of any of it, it is worth their time to pursue this.
Wilkins best hope in all of this would be to pass a physical administered by a neutral party. That would certainly seem to prove that whatever he was doing is putting him in a position to play football. That might be unlikely given his foot injury. These statements made by Raiders head coach Pete Carroll back in May, just weeks before the guarantees were voided, should work in Wilkins favor:
“Every day he’s here early, working hard, but we’re still working. He’s not ready to get back out. We’re in the midst of a long, challenging process. Fortunately, there’s a lot of time, and we’re going to take every bit of it. We’ve really tried to be really diligent in the way we’ve worked it and the way we’ve wanted it and all that, and he’s been on board the whole time. But it has been challenging”
That certainly seems to show commitment on his end to coming back and something big needed to change over those next few weeks which seems like a pretty quick change in direction from the Raiders. Whatever that was should determine if Wilkins is succrddful or not in recovering most or all of his salary.