Raiders defensive tackle Christian Wilkins made headlines last week when a post on social media showed him back in a walking boot.
The Raiders haven’t offered any detailed updates on Wilkins’ recovery, but it would seem the most recent images of Wilkins in a boot are the second time he has been in a boot in the last six months.
Wilkins suffered a setback to his surgically repaired foot sometime around the start of the calendar year, and it was a little concerning to see him back in a boot a few months later.
It’s possible Wilkins suffered a second setback, but Las Vegas Review-Journal insider Vinny Bonsignore dropped a few details last week suggesting the Raiders’ $110 million defensive tackle may have undergone a second procedure on his foot in the last few months.
“I think it’s important to go back a little bit to understand what happened,” Bonsignore said on the Vegas Nation podcast. “So that injury, come to find out, he hurt himself earlier in the game and he played through it. He played through it until they said, ‘You got to come off the field. No more.’”
“He gets the surgery the very next day. Literally, the very next day, which is kind of unusual. Sometimes players take a little bit of time to do the surgery. Come to the end of the season, he was on target to come back,” Bonsignore continued.
“He was kind of pushing to come back late last season. The Raiders said ‘No.’ Basically, they were out of it. They went through the long losing streak. [They said] ‘Take care of yourself. Don’t want to push it.’ So that’s where he was at the end of last season and by January at the very end of the season, it was basically a clear path for him to be ready for OTAs, minicamp, all of those things.”
Until now, no one has reported on how close Wilkins was to being at full strength at the end of the 2024 season.
Based on Bonsignore’s timeline, Wilkins had almost fully recovered from surgery and that might suggest that whatever happened to Wilkins in the weeks following the season must have been significant – not just a minor setback.
“Obviously, he suffered a setback. There was a setback, no question about that,” Bonsignore continued. “The original injury was an 8-12 week injury recovery. That’s why he was on target to maybe even come back at some point last year. They put the kibosh on that. So the way it’s been explained to me, it’s a couple of different things that could have happened.”
“He could have re-broken the original injury, or there’s usually a screw that’s inserted for this type of injury, that could have broken. In either case, it still remains an 8-12 week rehab.”
“We saw the picture of him with the walking boot [and] it felt to me like that was post-surgery, right? If there was a procedure, I would imagine, if he had the surgery a day after the injury happened originally, he was probably going to get, as soon as there was a sign that something was wrong,” Bonsignore continued. “He was going to get whatever follow-up surgery he was going to need to fix it. So now we’re dealing with that timeline, right?”
“It just depends if there was a procedure, which let’s just assume there was. It depends on where in that surgery happened, and we just don’t know when that happened.”
Without question, Bonsignore’s report on Wilkins was one of the most detailed reports in circulation since news broke in April that the Raiders’ star defensive tackle had experienced a setback and his 2025 season could be in jeopardy.
Several reports have indicated Wilkins may need another procedure on his foot and it sounds like that might have already happened.
Based on what Bonsignore is suggesting, the timeline around both of the most likely setback scenarios is 8-12 weeks, so it might just be a matter of filling in the blanks to when the timeline reset.
In May, Raiders’ head coach Pete Carroll acknowledged that it’s been a difficult recovery for Wilkins, but few details have been offered by the team outside of Carroll’s comments.
“Every day he’s here early, working hard, but we’re still working,” Carroll said in May.
“He’s not ready to get back out. We’re in the midst of a long, challenging process. 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 in the way we’ve worked it and the way we’ve wanted it and all that, and he’s been on board the whole time. But it has been challenging.”
x: @raidersbeat
Hey Raider Beat wasn’t Christian Wilkins your last headline? Yah it was. You just can’t put a headline together can you? Cut this piece of garbage now, I’m so tired of this overpaid piece of garbage. Move on baby!
Buzz off cum face ….go look up your fuzzhole
Larry Reid that doesn’t even make any sense. Did your parole officer give you a 2 minute break so you could write this wonderful post? Mensa!
Buzz off come face? I think you have the wrong, shall we say sport!