Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports that last summer, the Miami Dolphins offered Chrisitan Wilkins a contract that would have paid him in the Top 10 of all defensive tackles in the NFL . The 10th highest-paid defensive tackle was Kenny Clark of the Green Bay Packers, who paid him an average of $17.5 million a season. So, Wilkins would have been paid more than that. How much more, we don’t know, but it would have been Top 10 at his position money.
Barry also reports that the guaranteed money would have been more than $40 million, and only ten defensive tackles currently in the NFL have contracts with $40 million or more guaranteed.
It is important to remember that even though Miami isn’t using the franchise tag on Wilkins, they can still re-sign him during free agency, and it isn’t for certain that he has played his final game in Miami.
Wilkins ended the 2023 season with nine sacks and 65 tackles, a career high for sacks and a career low for tackles in a single season. When the Dolphins and Wilkins couldn’t agree to a long-term deal last summer prior to training camp, Wilkins held a sit-in during training camp last season, during which he didn’t participate in team drills or preseason games.
Miami then gave a long-term deal to Zach Sieler, whose contract was set to expire at the same time as Wilkins, to ensure that they wouldn’t lose both players. Just this week at the NFL Scouting Combine, Grier stated that he, Wilkins, and his team were close last offseason on a long-term deal, and he was hopeful.
The deadline to use the franchise tag is today (Wednesday March 5th) at 4pm. The legal tampering period for players to talk to other teams begins next Monday March 11th, and free agency officially begins next Wednesday March 13th at Noon Eastern time.
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