{"id":21553,"date":"2025-07-25T16:41:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T16:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/21553\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T16:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T16:41:16","slug":"raiders-cut-wilkins-arbitrator-to-decide-35m-guaranteed-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/21553\/","title":{"rendered":"Raiders Cut Wilkins, Arbitrator to Decide $35M \u2018Guaranteed\u2019 Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> released defensive tackle Christian Wilkins on Thursday, calling the decision in the \u201cbest interests of the organization\u201d in a statement. The 2019 first-round draft pick was entering the second year of a four-year, $110 million contract, with $35.2 million in \u201cguaranteed\u201d money left that the Raiders voided. Shortly after, the NFL Players Association filed a grievance on behalf of Wilkins.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis situation is the latest reminder that the headline numbers in NFL contracts are often imaginary, with the league lacking the same level of guarantees in its contracts that exist in the NBA, MLB and NHL.<\/p>\n

\n\tWilkins suffered a Jones fracture in his left foot early in the 2024 season. He had surgery, but a dispute arose this summer on whether the defensive tackle should have another surgery or continue rehabilitation. The Raiders placed Wilkins on the physically unable to perform list last week at the start of training camp, before waiving him Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NFL CBA<\/a> includes a notice of contract termination in its appendix. Clubs can check one of five boxes that range from unsatisfactory performance to personal conduct that adversely affects the club.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to ESPN, Wilkins\u2019 termination was a result of the first choice in the notice: \u201cYou have failed to establish or maintain your excellent physical condition to the satisfaction of the Club physician.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe CBA has detailed language regarding its Injury Protection Benefit. It states that a player must undergo \u201creasonable and customary rehabilitation treatment the club required of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe question about guaranteed money in the NFL has been at the forefront of the league over the past month. A January arbitration decision<\/a>, which was unveiled in late June on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, found the league\u2019s management council \u201cencouraged\u201d owners in 2022 to reduce contract guarantees after the Browns signed\u00a0Deshaun Watson<\/a>, but that owners didn\u2019t collude in violation of the collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn arbitrator will now determine whether Wilkins is entitled to his $35 million. His grievance falls under \u201cnon-injury\u201d category, which covers fines, suspension and prior-year injuries that invoke the collectively bargained Injury Protection Benefit. The NFLPA<\/a>\u2019s website say it is successful in \u201cconsiderably more than half\u201d of the overall grievances filed, which also includes injury cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Las Vegas Raiders released defensive tackle Christian Wilkins on Thursday, calling the decision in the \u201cbest interests…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,21976,21977,1250,593,11567,85],"class_list":["post-21553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cba","tag-deshaun-watson","tag-las-vegas-raiders","tag-nfl","tag-nflpa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}