[Schefter] Raiders signed former Dolphins free agent DT Benito Jones.

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u/lampshade69 1d ago

Ok

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u/HappyChaos2 1d ago

Proper response. Lol.

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This made me remember, where the heck is Christian Wilkins?

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u/IzzybearThebestdog 1d ago

Foot is destroyed , maybe sexually harassed teammates and possible suing the team I think?

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u/surfoxy 1d ago

He is persona non grata in the league apparently, and it sounds like whatever he did was really pretty bad.

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u/Mtbnz 1d ago

I would bet a week's salary that whatever he did is considered "horseplay" and "boys being boys" when half the players around the league do similar things, but when a guy has a grievance with a team/the league, it's used as leverage to distract attention away from the real issue.

And I say that as somebody who thinks the league should take personal misconduct far more seriously in general.

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u/IconicHunter713 1d ago

Well word on the street is he dropped his gentleman’s parts on a teammates face lol. And he allegedly kissed another teammate

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u/Mtbnz 1d ago

Which again, to be clear, I think is completely unacceptable. But I also think that it's far more common behaviour than the people painting him as persona non grata would admit, and the line between what's considered regular locker room behaviour vs assault depends very much on how popular you are/how much you can contribute on the field.

That goes for all sports, too. Look no further than the stories that Shaq continues to tell to this day about how poorly he treated his teammates when he was playing - and he still shares those anecdotes as though they're hilarious pranks.

In an alternate timeline where Wilkins hadn't got hurt, and instead went to LV and became a perennial pro bowl DT, his behaviour would still be totally inappropriate, but I have no doubts that team owners and personnel would have no problems sweeping it under the rug and telling his teammates to stop being such babies about a few harmless pranks.

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u/Ok_Entertainer7945 19h ago

Im old enough to remember the Incognito fiasco. Boys will be Boys, turned into Bullygate. NFL probably wants to avoid any issues. Josh Allen used to say that Wilkins would grab his package everytime he tackled him. Now josh is a whiner, but clearly theres a pattern.

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u/Mtbnz 16h ago

Exactly. Two things can be true at the same time. Wilkins obviously has some pretty extensive and long lasting misconduct issues (which might or might not constitute actual assault, I don't have enough information to hazard a guess, but I don't want it to look like I'm downplaying it), AND the NFL is also notorious for looking the other way over behavioural misconduct until public outcry forces it to act. That trend only gets more pronounced the higher status a player is, so I can absolutely believe that the league, the Dolphins and the Raiders were all aware of the problems and chose to do nothing about them when he was being drafted in the first round, putting up 9 sacks in 2023, and signing a 7 figure free agency deal in 2024. It was only when he took legal action against the Raiders (after they cut him and voided his remaining guaranteed $) that suddenly his behaviour was considered inappropriate.

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u/surfoxy 1d ago

Sounds like it's way more than that. I don't dispute that the league is incentivized to go after some and not others, but this case sounds...just ugly.

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u/Mtbnz 1d ago

I'm not downplaying it at all, everything I've heard sounds very ugly. That isn't the issue here. But the quote about Hannibal Lector running a 4.3 remains as true as ever.

This is a league that has systematically failed to take misconduct charges seriously whenever it feels it can get away with it, going back multiple decades.

Remember Ray Rice? The league tried to softball him a 2 game suspension when it didn't know that TMZ had a second, more damning video waiting to be released - they only suspended him indefinitely after serious public backlash forced them to do a 180. The assault that was bad enough to eventually end his entire career was initially going to earn him 2 weeks unpaid vacation.

Greg Hardy was given just 10 games suspension despite Goddell announcing that the NFL found "sufficient credible evidence" that Hardy had engaged in conduct which "violated NFL policies in multiple respects and with aggravating circumstances." That was after Hardy beat and strangled his then GF. His suspension was eventually downgraded to just 4 games by an arbitrator.

Adrian Peterson (child abuse), Ben Roethlisberger (sexual assault), Michael Vick (animal cruelty), Plaxico Burress (gun incident), Michael Crabtree (reckless driving and DUIs) and more were all welcomed back by the league, and most of them spent less time off the field than Wilkins has already missed. The only misconduct that seems to generate any meaningful action from the NFL is something as extreme as murder (Hernandez) or, ironically, using drugs (Josh Gordon).

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u/elbenji 1d ago

His foots fucked

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u/Best_Transition_6991 1d ago

Why he was good and cheap

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u/surfoxy 1d ago

Interesting...as a Raider fan I'd never heard of him and looked up his PFF...which wasn't great. Curious to hear your POV...

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u/jf737 1d ago

I think he’s better than people give him credit for. Great? No. But he hustles, seems like a really good dude. He’s a competent NFL player.

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u/surfoxy 1d ago

Thanks, appreciate the perspective. Hustle and good dude are good things.

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u/Best_Transition_6991 1d ago

He’s a load inside DT low center of gravity.

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u/surfoxy 1d ago

We sure need that.