The Raiders are testing the definition of guaranteed money.
On Thursday, the Raiders released defensive tackle Christian Wilkins one year into a four-year, $110 million deal he signed in 2024. The deal came with $82.75 million in guarantees and $57.5 million guaranteed at signing. The decision to waive Wilkins stems from a disagreement over his injured foot, which cost him most of the 2024 season and still isn’t healed with training camp underway.
The Raiders released Wilkins with the designation of a terminated vested veteran, and they are claiming Wilkins violated his contract with how he handled his injury rehab. Las Vegas voided the remaining $35.2 million guaranteed on his contract, $8 million for this season and $27.25 million in 2026. Wilkins’s contract came with $57.5 million guaranteed. The Raiders voided the money on June 4, and the NFLPA had 50 days to file a grievance over the guarantee, which they did Thursday.
“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,” the team said in a statement.
In October 2024, Wilkins sustained a Jones fracture in his left foot during his fifth game with the Raiders, which ended his season. The Raiders and Wilkins disagreed about how to rehab the injury, with the team telling the tackle he needed another surgery on his injured foot, according to The Athletic. Wilkins never had the surgery, and he wasn’t ready for team OTAs in May.
The Raiders are using Article 30, subsection 3A of the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement to justify the designation.
“An otherwise qualified player will not be entitled to Termination Pay under this Article if the Club can demonstrate that, after receipt of a written warning from his Club in the form attached hereto as Appendix I, the player failed to exhibit the level of good faith effort which can be reasonably expected from NFL players on that Club,” the section states.
The NFL Players Association has two kinds of grievances, injury and non-injury, and Wilkins is a non-injury grievance despite his fractured foot rehab being the focal point because it’s about recouped salary. If the Raiders are successful in voiding Wilkins’s remaining guaranteed money, the team will just have to pay his prorated signing bonus through 2028.
So far, Wilkins has been paid $49.7 million by the Raiders. Wilkins’s contract came with a $24 million signing bonus, and he had a $5 million base salary in 2025 in addition to a workout bonus for less than $100,000 and $120,000 in roster bonuses for the games he was active in.
In March, his deal was restructured to create salary-cap space for the Raiders. The team changed a $20.5 million roster bonus—which has also been paid—into a signing bonus and added a void year to the contract. The $44 million between the signing bonus and reworked roster bonus was prorated over the next four years, which would be a cap hit of just under $10 million through 2028.
The next step in the grievance process will be a hearing.
An NFLPA spokesperson declined to comment. A representative for Wilkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
