Former Gators DBs Marco Wilson, CJ Gardner-Johnson Find New Homes in NFL

Former Florida Gators defensive back Marco Wilson will return to the sunshine state in 2026, with the Fort Lauderdale native signing a one-year deal with his hometown Miami Dolphins Thursday.

Wilson, a former top-200 recruit who played in 36 games at Florida, has spent five seasons in the NFL after being selected in the fourth round of the NFL draft by the Arizona Cardinals. Over 64 career games in the pros and 37 starts, he has recorded 179 career tackles, three interceptions and one touchdown.

A flippin' awesome Pick-6 for the Cardinals!

🏈: (via @NFL) | @Saints vs. @AZCardinals #TNFonPrime | Watch NOW on @PrimeVideo pic.twitter.com/pK7Tn2yqn1
— NFL on Prime Video (@NFLonPrime) October 21, 2022

Wilson will now have the opportunity to play at Hard Rock Stadium just 20 minutes down the road from where he played high school football at Plantation (Fla.) American Heritage. The veteran will join a rather open Dolphins cornerback room, while having the chance to play next to another former Miami-native Gator defensive back in Jason Marshall Jr.

After a tenure at Florida where Wilson recorded 103 total tackles and three interceptions, playing over 2,000 total snaps in his long Gators career highlighted by a freshman campaign where he would record an impressive 10 pass deflections, the return to the state comes with plenty of fan familiarity- for good and for bad.

His success at the university was somewhat overshadowed by the infamous ‘shoe throw’ that came in a Gators loss to LSU in December of 2020, where a late personal foul called on Wilson after a third down stop would result in the Tigers continuing a drive that would later end in a game winning field goal to pull off the upset over the then sixth ranked Florida squad.

December 12th, 2020: Florida’s Marco Wilson throws an LSU’s player shoe. pic.twitter.com/DXI3c54t2r
— Back Then Sports (@BackThenSports) December 12, 2025

Despite the incident, Wilson has had a solid professional career spanning over four different organizations, while the defensive back had no regrets when looking back at the critical mistake.

“Oh, 100%,” Wilson said recently on if he would throw the shoe again if he had the chance. “I'd probably throw it further, truthfully."

Now onto the next step in his journey near where it started, Wilson was not the only former Gator to join the NFC east on the day, with his former teammate at Florida C.J. Gardner-Johnson signing a one-year deal with the Buffalo Bills worth up to six million dollars. Once lining up together in the swamp in 2017 and 2018, the two will now face off twice in the new season as division rivals, making the matchups one to watch for Florida fans looking for some nostalgia or possibly avoid due to the risk of bringing up a bad memory of the Gators' past.