Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Christian Wilkins is close to returning to action.
The former Clemson star suffered a season-ending foot injury last season, and an update regarding his injury status came out this week.
The update isn’t an encouraging one, as The Athletic’s Tashan Reed posted a photo showing Wilkins with a walking boot on his left foot at Baltimore Ravens linebacker Kyle Van Noy’s charity golf challenge on Monday.
Wilkins is still rehabbing from a broken foot that cut his 2024 season short last October. The Las Vegas Raiders defensive tackle suffered the injury in Week 5 and was placed on injured reserve after undergoing surgery for a Jones fracture.
The hope was that Wilkins would be ready to go by the time the Raiders report to training camp on July 22, but the fact he’s back in a boot doesn’t seem to bode well for that possibility.
Raiders head coach Pete Carroll said recently that Wilkins was “in the midst of a long, challenging” recovery process. He was on hand for OTAs (organized team activities) but didn’t take part in drills.
“It’s been a difficult recovery and he’s done everything he needs to do,” Carroll said in late May. “He’s been here every day. He’s here early working hard. But we’re still working it, and he’s not ready to get back out.”
“We’re in the midst of a long, challenging process,” Carroll added. “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 about the way we’ve worked it and the way we’ve monitored it and all of that, and he’s been on board the whole time. But it has been challenging.”
Wilkins, 29, agreed to a massive four-year, $110 million deal with the Raiders last offseason prior to the 2024 season, making him the second-highest paid defensive tackle in the league.
The 6-foot-4, 310-pounder recorded 17 tackles (two for loss), two sacks and six quarterback hits over five games with the Raiders last season prior to his season-ending injury.
A 2019 first-round pick (13th overall), Wilkins spent the first five years of his NFL career with the Miami Dolphins and amassed 355 tackles, 20.5 sacks and 43 tackles for loss over 81 career games (77 starts) during his time in Miami. He hadn’t missed a game since 2020 before his injury on Oct. 6 against the Denver Broncos.