How Las Vegas Raiders' Christian Wilkins Found His Game at the Next Level

The transition from college to the pros was tough for defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, but he would eventually transform into one of the best interior defensive linemen in the league.

Las Vegas Raiders defensive tackle Christian Wilkins struggled to adjust to the NFL after years of success at Clemson.

His inability to initially translate his college success to the pros during his first training camp with the Miami Dolphins even had the star defensive tackle questioning his game. But as we know now, that issue did not last for long.

"When you're faced with that adversity early, either it's going to make you or break you," Wilkins said when he recently joined the "Third and Long" podcast. "And you got to make the decision how you want this to turn out and even now, to this day, even a guy having success in this league, I still make that decision every day. Every day I wake up, every day I carry out with my process and make the decisions to be so routine and disciplined and make all the sacrifices I do.

"You make that decision every day: 'All right, do I want to be as great as I possibly can?' So, that was just kind of my mindset always, and I just kept grinding, just kept my head down, kept working and just kept hammering away until I was able to just find some success.

"It was definitely a slow, dreadful, grueling process. Just even, again, coming from Clemson in a system and a scheme where I could just -- I was more athletic than everybody, I was able to just make a lot of plays and do a lot of things. And in some ways, I thought it was going to be a smooth transition; it was not.

"This is grown men I'm going up against, they're technicians and all that too, so I really just had to find my way and what worked for me and figure out how to work in that scheme and just how to be great in certain schemes and become a technician and all those things that are really important, become a complete football player.

Wilkins also learned from other players around the league when he would meet up with them in the offseason.

"I just really went all in, and I just, even now, every decision I make and devote my life is: 'Do I want to be great or not?'" Wilkins said. "But whether that's attainable or not for me to be the best, I'm going to try to be my best."

You can watch the entire podcast episode here.

The NFL Draft will be held in Detroit, Mich., on April 25-27, 2024. The Las Vegas Raiders currently have the No. 13 overall pick.

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