After weeks of speculation around Christian Wilkins’ surgically repaired foot, a report finally shed some light on what’s really going on with the Raiders’ $110 million defensive tackle.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vinny Bonsignore, Wilkins did suffer a setback with his foot and it comes down to either a broken screw or re-broken bone in his foot.
“It essentially comes down to the screw breaking or (in the rare case) he rebroke the bone,” Bonsignore reported on X. “In either case, the feeling is that he should be ready by August.”
Wilkins initially had surgery in October of 2024 for a Jones fracture, and he was expected to be back in plenty of time for the 2025 season. In most cases, 3-4 months is the approximate timeline for recovery, but Wilkins’ setback has obviously reset the clock a little.
Speaking with members of the media on Wednesday afternoon after voluntary workouts, Raiders head coach Pete Carroll said it’s been a “challenging process” with Wilkins’ foot, but didn’t offer any more details.
“He’s not ready to get back out,” Carroll said. “We’re in the midst of a long, challenging process. So fortunately, there’s a lot of time.”
In this case, “a lot of time” is a little more than three months before the kickoff of meaningful games.
At the very least, it seems like Wilkins is going to miss a portion of OTAs and it would feel like a win for everyone involved if he can be anywhere close to 100 percent before the start of the regular season.
x: @raidersbeat
Great! Another bust.
What the heck has he been doing since his injury?
That would be evaluation, referral to surgeon, diagnosis, surgery, recovery, physical therapy, on-going evaluation every few weeks, training (beyond PT) and concurrent attendance in scheduled meetings, etc. Discovery of the setback would typically happen during post PT training and subsequent evaluation. So an unfortunate but not unforeseeable timeliness to this scenario.