About halfway through the 2019 NFL season, Miami Dolphins fans were distraught in every way possible. The team was 0-7 and the Dolphins, while scrappy, really didn’t have any individual players who were commanding praise for their play on any given week. That included DL Christian Wilkins, the team’s top draft selection in the 2019 NFL Draft.
“Where is Christian Wilkins?” was a popular, trendy topic on social media — the team was having trouble getting expected firepower out of their early pick.
But as the season forged on, Christian Wilkins slowly and steadily transformed from a rookie defender playing amid sub-optimal conditions and became exactly the kind of presence Miami envisioned when they selected him in the top-15. And by the end of the year, Christian Wilkins had registered one of the most disruptive rookie seasons Pro Football Focus has tracked since 2016.
#Dolphins interior defender Christian Wilkins recorded 30 total pressures in 2019. Tied for 3rd most among all rookie DI since 2016#FinsUp pic.twitter.com/sTmY8GlWJb
— PFF MIA Dolphins (@PFF_Dolphins) June 3, 2020
Expect even more fireworks out of Wilkins in 2020. The Dolphins have done an excellent job surrounding Wilkins on the defensive line with better talent — the team paid handsomely for Shaq Lawson and Emmanuel Ogbah in free agency and also added Raekwon Davis with a 2nd-round selection. That was perhaps the biggest stumbling block for Wilkins in 2019 — the defense didn’t provide enough threats to allow Wilkins a starring role as a penetration defender. Some of those opportunities will naturally come and go throughout the course of the season as matchups dictate, too — but Wilkins was dealing with plenty of attention in the middle and without threats to stress opposing offensive lines, he wasn’t able to play a game changing role.
Let it serve as a great reminder that football is a team sport — and especially on defense. Miami, with a brand new stable of defensive linemen (and linebackers) ready to challenge opposing fronts, will be much better positioned to let Wilkins shine in 2020. Expect him to rise to the occasion.