Mo Wilkerson doesn't feel wanted by Jets: 'What more do I need to do?'
Wilkerson is unhappy with the lack of progress on a long-term contract
By
Jared Dubin
•
2 min read
Muhammad Wilkerson was a first-round pick of the New York Jets back in 2011. Since then, he's played in 77 games out of 80, starting 75. He has racked up 301 tackles, 36.5 sacks, 21 passes defensed, and 10 forced fumbles. By Pro-Football-Reference's Approximate Value (an attempt to attach a single-number value to every player-season since 1950), he has been the NFL's third most-valuable defensive lineman sine entering the league, behind only J.J. Watt and Geno Atkins.
Wilkerson, a free agent this offseason, would like a new long-term deal, preferably one that makes him a very rich man. Based on his level of play, it's hard to argue he doesn't deserve it. The Jets instead offered him the franchise tag, which he has yet to sign. After seeing the kinds of deals being given out to players like Philadelphia's Fletcher Cox (six years, $103 million), Wilkerson can't help but feel that the Jets simply don't want him. Why else would they not offer a long-term contract that keeps him in green and white for the foreseeable future?
"It's shocking. It's frustrating," Wilkerson said, per the New York Post. "Because I feel like I've earned it and I deserve it. It would be different if I was just a mediocre player. I feel like each and every week I'm dominating and it's showing. The stats speak for themselves. Basically, what more do I need to do? You know what I mean?"
Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan and head coach Todd Bowles have maintained that they want Wilkerson to remain with the team for a long time, but Wilkerson isn't buying. If that were true, from his perspective, they'd do something about it. "Do I feel that they want me back? As of right now, no," Wilkerson said. "I don't feel like they want me. I'm a talented guy. Everybody knows that. I feel like they're going to get the best they can out of me and just let me go. That's how I feel."
One might argue that the Jets' salary cap situation makes it difficult to offer Wilkerson a long-term deal right now. The Jets are only $3 million under the 2016 cap, after all. But part of the reason for that is that Wilkerson's cap number for the year is $15.7 million, the entirety of the franchise tag. By offering a long-term deal, the Jets can artificially lower his cap number by giving him a signing bonus and a low Year 1 base salary, pushing the larger cap hits to the remaining years of the deal. That would allow them more room to do things like re-sign Ryan Fitzpatrick, which they've been saying all offseason that they want to do (regardless of how misguided that might be).
The Jets now have less than a month to work something out with Wilkerson (the deadline for franchise tag recipients to sign a long-term contract is July 15), otherwise he has to play the entire year on the tag. The urgency just does not seem to be there, though. "I don't think they're trying like they should. We've still got time," Wilkerson said. "The deadline is in a month. We've got some time."
