‘Brotha always been a lil freaky’ — Former Raiders lineman drops cryptic six-word bomb on Christian Wilkins as team faces grievance battle over voided guarantees and rumors swirl of locker room ‘incident’ - suong

The Las Vegas Raiders won’t have Christian Wilkins on their roster next season, but they’ll likely be dealing with his situation for a while. When the team cut the veteran defensive tackle, they voided the remaining guarantees left on his contract. 

Wilkins has filed a grievance with the NFLPA, so it remains to be seen if the Raiders will have to pay him the money. Las Vegas has been vague about what exactly led to them releasing Wilkins, outside of the fact that they had a dispute on how he should attack rehab from a foot injury he suffered last season.

Multiple reports suggested that the Raiders wanted him to get a second surgery to repair the foot, but Wilkins did not. However, there might be a lot more to the story. There have been rumors that Wilkins may have had issues with teammates prior to his release, according to NFL insider Josina Anderson.

“Some league sources believe an incident involving a teammate may have factored in-part into the Raiders’ fatigue and release of defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, beyond the management of his foot injury as the reported predominant cause,” Anderson wrote. “The Raiders have not officially confirmed an incident or a complaint involving Wilkins and a teammate, while another direct league source confirmed awareness of a situation in which ‘Christian (was) playing around.’”

Former Raider Responds to Wilkins Rumors

While a lot of stuff that happens in locker rooms gets leaked, there are hundreds of stories that never get reported. Prior to this situation, there weren’t many rumors about Wilkins’ personality.

Former Raiders offensive lineman Jon Feliciano has never been Wilkins’ teammate, but he has played against him. He had an interesting reaction to Anderson’s report and some of the other rumors regarding the defensive tackle.

“Brotha always been a lil freaky,” Feliciano wrote on X.

Feliciano did not add any other context to that quote. It’s difficult to know what that means, but it’s notable that more stuff is coming out about Wilkins.

Raiders Could Face Uphill Battle

Even if it’s revealed that Wilkins was causing issues beyond his disagreements about how to rehad his foot, the Raiders won’t have an easy time winning the case to void his guarantees. Saad Yousuf of The Athletic broke down why that is the case.

“The next step in the process is for an arbitrator to conduct a hearing, which hasn’t been scheduled yet,” Yousuf wrote. “Barring any specific language in the Wilkins contract, the Raiders will have an uphill battle to fight.

“The Raiders were at the center of a grievance recently when Antonio Brown’s short, tumultuous stint in Oakland in 2019 ended with his release and the Raiders voiding $30 million in guaranteed salary. The Raiders were in a strong position to win that dispute, especially after providing text-message evidence that Brown requested his release. The receiver filed nine grievances over various voided salaries that year by the Raiders and New England Patriots, who signed Brown shortly after his Raiders release but cut him 11 days later. In his filings against the Patriots, the two sides eventually came to a settlement in which Brown was awarded $5 million of the $9 million signing bonus he was seeking to recoup.”