Film room: Wilkins has strong performance in Raiders debut

A silver lining from Sunday’s loss as the free-agent signing had a good game

While the Las Vegas Raiders dropped their Week 1 matchup with the Los Angeles Chargers, the Raiders defense had a strong performance and one of the silver linings from the game was the performance of free-agent signing Christian Wilkins.

According to Pro Football Focus, Wilkins earned an 80.8 grade which was the third-highest on the team’s defense and eighth-best among defensive tackles across the league (pre-Monday Night Football). A big reason for that was he collected four ‘defensive stops’ against the run, tied for the second-most at his position only trailing teammate John Jenkins.

Additionally, while the former Dolphin wasn’t credited with a pressure, he did post a 71.8 pass-rush grade from PFF which was a top-20 mark at his position.

So, let’s flip on the tape and break down the big man’s Silver and Black debut.

We’ll start with an example of the free-agent signing being dominant at the point of attack. With the Raiders in an odd front and the Chargers running inside zone, he gets a one-on-one block with the right guard and immediately gains control of the block with great leverage and hand placement.

That allows Wilkins to take away the gap he is responsible for, the playside B-gap, and then cross the guard’s face to go make the tackle on the backside after Adam Butler wins against his one-on-one block.

Butler is also deserving of some recognition as he had a strong performance against the run, too.

Overall, this is a good team defense rep from the Raiders’ defensive line as the Chargers run an inside zone to the strong side of the formation. That puts Wilkins on the backside of the play as he takes on a combo block from the right guard and tackle.

Those two offensive linemen’s goal is to get up to the second level and block Divine Deablo to create a backside cutback lane for the running back. However, Wilkins does a great job of attacking the guard and keeping the guard at the line of scrimmage so Deablo never gets blocked.

On top of that, the defensive tackle gets skinny by turning his hip into the left tackle, making it difficult for the tackle to get a clean block on him. Then, when the front side defenders do their jobs—shoutout Butler and Janarius Robinson—the running back is forced to cut backside.

Finally, Wilkins escapes the block and is able to get involved in the tackle for a minimal gain as four defenders swarm the ball, including Deablo who was unblocked thanks to Wilkins.

The play call is similar here as Los Angeles runs inside zone again, just to the weakside of the formation. That puts Wilkins on the backside of the play once more.

A few things that he was doing a great job of on Sunday were winning at the point of attack with strength and leverage, and crossing offensive linemen’s face to make tackles. This is a good example of both.

Wilkins gets his helmet under Joe Alt’s and keeps his feet moving after contact to take away the backside B-gap which is his primary responsibility. But what makes this play impressive is he recognizes when the running back cuts, sinks his hips and uses a hump move to beat Alt across Alt’s face and make the tackle in the C-gap.

This is an elite rep from a defensive tackle as Wilkins takes away two gaps from the running back while making a high-quality tackle, which he did this a few times on Sunday.

Here’s another example of Wilkins taking away two gaps against the run but in a different way of going about it.

This time, he slants into the B-gap and beats the right guard with a good rip move to get penetration. With that hole plugged, the running back tries to bounce to the B-gap, but Wilkins ends up getting involved in the tackle for roughly a two-yard gain.

With his combination of strength, athleticism and instincts, the man is just a pure playmaker on the interior of the defensive line.

Wilkins wasn’t quite as impressive as a pass-rusher against the Chargers, but he did have a few quality reps that are encouraging moving forward.

Las Vegas runs a T/T twist where he is going to be the penetrator and Butler is the looper. Wilkins puts together teach tape material on how to pick the center as he gets to square on the guard post-snap and sells the regular rush with a rip move. Then, he shifts his attention to the center and takes out the center who ends up taking out the left guard.

Also, because the defensive tackle sold the regular rush well, the right guard followed him and that created a massive pass rush lane for Butler that Butler could have exploited had Justin Herbert not checked the ball down.

So, Wilkins essentially sacrificed himself to occupy three offensive linemen and free up a teammate. Reps like these will pay off later in the year and help lead to sacks.

We’ll end with another rep that unfortunately doesn’t show up on the stat sheet but serves as a silver lining for the Raiders’ pass rush for the rest of the season.

Wilkins is lined up as a 0-technique nose tackle and sets up his move well by working up the field and to the center’s left. Watch the center’s hips as that subtle move gets the center to open his hips slightly to the left. Once that happens, Wilkins does an excellent job of using his hands and working across the center’s face to get a win.

He does collide with Butler and the ball is out quickly again, but this will lead to production down the line.