For the last two days, there have been rumors around an “incident” between former Raiders defensive tackle Christian Wilkins and someone within the organization, and on Monday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter added a new detail to the saga.
According to Schefter, it has been rumored that at some point during the offseason there was a “playful” kiss from Wilkins on a teammate that was not well received.
“From speaking with people within the locker room, what everyone is dancing around and tiptoeing around is when you speak to people there inside the locker room, they say that Christian playfully went to kiss a teammate on top of his head and those same people said that player took offense to it,” Schefter said on the Pat McAfee Show.
A simple Google search reveals that Wilkins has a history of getting frisky with teammates and even opponents on the field.
The picture (below) from 2023 shows Wilkins appearing to give Hunter Renfrow a kiss and Wilkins has also been accused of grabbing players inappropriately during games.
But what might be more newsworthy than the ‘kissing’ rumors is that it sounds like there might be an even bigger story around Wilkins that hasn’t reached the public yet.
In the wake of Schefter’s report, NBC’s ProFootballTalk and other accounts have hinted that there is something else being talked about behind closed doors.
Presumably, something bigger.
Whatever it was that happened between Wilkins and the Raiders must have been significant because it’s hard to imagine the team would be willing to risk tens of millions in guaranteed money to part ways with a star player that didn’t take the medical course of action the team preferred.
Whatever is being talked about behind the scenes is going to come out eventually, and when that happens maybe we’ll have a better understanding of why the Raiders surprised so many around the league, and even in their own building, by releasing Wilkins just one year into his four-year, $110 million deal.
x: @raidersbeat