For the second week in a row, former Pro Bowl defensive end Mo Wilkerson will reportedly be a healthy scratch for the New York Jets.
Not only that, but according to Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, some on the Jets want Wilkerson, who’s been accused of taking plays off and isn’t remotely living up to his huge salary, to be banned from the team’s practice facility.
“There’s a feeling of annoyance on One Jets Drive surrounding this saga. People in the building simply want this to be over. They’re fed up with Wilkerson, who has underachieved on the field and embarrassed the organization off it since signing his monster five-year contract before the 2016 season.
“Not only do they want Wilkerson not to practice anymore (he barely practiced all week and didn’t participate in pivotal practice sessions, according to people familiar with the situation), but they want him banned from the team facility.”
Last weekend, Wilkerson didn’t even travel with the team to play against the New York Jets. It was reported that the reason for this disciplinary action is that Wilkerson was extremely tardy for a team meeting.
Mehta added in his report this Saturday that “Wilkerson’s claim this week that he’s a ‘leader’ and ‘earned everything I’ve gotten’ was viewed as high comedy on One Jets Drive.”
“He lives in his own world,” a team source said.
Wilkerson signed a huge contract extension with the Jets following his hugely successful 2015 season, during which he tallied 12.5 sacks. Since then, he’s appeared in 28 games and has managed just eight sacks, a far cry from the kind of production the team thought it was purchasing.
For a while there it looked inevitable that the Jets would be trading Wilkerson. Now, given his salary and red flags, we’d be stunned if any team took on the burden of that contract. With that in mind, we’d expect the Jets to cut him as soon as it’s financially expedient following the 2017 season.