Insider Leaks Raiders Player on Receiving End of Christian Wilkins Incident

The Christian Wilkins saga continues to unfold for the Las Vegas Raiders despite the fact that he’s already been cut by the team. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that part of the reason the Raiders want to move was due to a human resources issue involving Wilkins kissing a teammate on the head.

Schefter did not name the player involved, which has led to much speculation. However, The 33rd Team’s Ari Meirov decided to reveal the name of a player who was involved. He named fellow defensive tackle Adam Butler was involved in the issue with Wilkins.

“Around league circles, it’s pretty well known that whatever happened with Christian Wilkins, the other player has been Adam Butler. That’s been known around the NFL,” Meirov said on the “NFL Spotlight” podcast.

“I don’t know what exactly what happened, I’m not going to go out there and speculate. We have the report about the kissing on the forehead. There could be a possibility where this is all going to go through an arbitrator and the Raiders are going to have to explain why they released [Wilkins] … is it all because of the injury or was their more conduct detrimental to the team?”

Butler Recently Spoke About Wilkins Situation

The timing of Meirov’s report is certainly interesting, considering Butler spoke to the media this week. He was asked about the Wilkins situation, and while he avoided talking about specifics, he did have an interesting message.

“We pretty just kind of moved on from the situation,” Butler told reporters on Tuesday. “I really don’t want to comment further on it, but I will say that, whatever you’re going through as a person, athlete, non-athlete, whoever, whatever your struggle is, if you’ve got something going on in life, just talk to somebody. Get some therapy. Whatever your deal is, is your deal. Somebody out there in this world full of billions of people is willing to listen. They’re willing to listen, hear you out and help work through whatever you need to work through, but don’t make any hasty decisions. Get help.”

Mike Florio Believes There’s More to Situation

Schefter has reported that the incident was about Wilkins kissing a teammate on the head, but some believe there’s more to it. Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio believes that Schefter helped put a favorable spin on a more serious story.

“The reality here is Christin Wilkins has representation that is charged with finding him a job, so what do you do? You work the angles. You work your sources,” Florio said on PFT Live. “Let’s call it what it is. David Mulugheta represents Christian Wilkins. He’s working [Adam Schefter] to get Schefter to put a story out there that is favorable to Christian Wilkins. Let’s just put a favorable story out there so someone will pay him a lot of money. That’s how it works.”

“Why does the reporter do it?” Florio added. “Because it pays off on the back end. For example, when Micah Parsons signs his contract, Schefter may be the first one to report it now because it’s the same agent representing both guys. That’s the transactional nature of the insider game.”