The Miami Dolphins have until March 5 to use the franchise tag on a player.
The Miami Dolphins selected Christian Wilkins in the first round of the 2019 draft as the first piece of a franchise rebuild. After five years playing in South Florida, he’s set to reach free agency with a career-high nine sacks under his belt in 2024.
Wilkins and the Dolphins failed to reach a deal last offseason and Miami is currently $30 million over the salary cap. On top of that, the deadline to use the franchise tag is March 5. If the Dolphins chose to tag Wilkins, general manager Chris Grier would have to clear an additional $19 million by the start of the new league year on March 13.
“I think all options are on the table for us,” Grier said at the NFL combine on Wednesday. “I’m going to meet here with Christian’s agent this week. David [Mulugheta] and I have always had good conversations. I’m just being very transparent with it. He has earned it. He’s had a great season. So we’ll see what happens here as we talk over the next couple of weeks.”
Wilkins, 28, played 894 snaps, the fourth-most among defensive tackles last season. He’s combined for 252 total tackles while playing all 17 games over each of the last three seasons.
“We’ve had conversations, and we were close on a deal last offseason,” Grier said. “It didn’t come together. For us, we know who Christian is, the type of person and player and what he brings to the organization. So for us, at the end of the day, it’s not what he had to do as we were talking and trying to build a team and put together a roster of trying to work together and try to find something that was fair to him and us.
“At the end of the day, we tried, and the agent acknowledged it was a very fair offer and we felt good. So we’ll see where that takes us this offseason.”