MO A REAL

Claiming injury could be financial ploy

Muhammad Wilkerson added another wrinkle to his multi-million dollar heist that might make it easy for the Jets to send him packing in a few months. The underachieving defensive lineman, believe it or not, made the strategically smart choice this week to reveal that he’s dealing with a Grade 1 AC joint sprain. (He unwittingly chucked Todd Bowles under the bus in the process. More on that later).

Wilkerson’s sudden forthrightness was a savvy move for a guy who knows that his future with the Jets (and lofty 2018 paycheck) is on the line if he flops for a second consecu- tive season.

If/when Wilkerson pulls another disappearing act, he can always claim, “See! I was hurt!”

The bottom line in this bottom-line business: Wilkerson has not come close to living up to his five-year, $86 million contract signed before the 2016 season. He has a grand total of 4½ sacks in 18 games since the Jets doled out a fully guaranteed $36.75 million.

You don’t need to be Euclid to figure this out: That’s $8.16666667 million per sack. Great work if you can get it. Wilkerson has eight tackles (five solo), no sacks, no quarterback hits, two run stops and a grand total of one tackle for a loss in the first three games.

I’m no scout, but I’m fairly certain that stinks.

Players’ takes on their health should be taken at face value though. You don’t provide concessions if a guy claims that he’s healthy. You believe him.

When Wilkerson boasted about his full recovery from offseason leg surgery in 2016, I took him at his word. When he posted workout videos about how he was healthy and ready to go (even though he and his camp privately hoped to be traded to a team that would pay him the big bucks that they believed would never come from the Jets), I took him at his word.

Wilkerson did an about-face late last season after he stunk up the joint. He was rightfully criticized for his drastic decline in production (and embarrassing tardiness issues).

He later claimed that his ankle had been bothering him. Some folks on One Jets Drive believed that the ankle issue was a convenient crutch for an underperforming player.

Wilkerson went so far as to throw the Jets training staff under the bus by claiming that they didn’t have a proper pain management/ treatment plan in place. Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with some important people in the organization.

When scouts and eyewitnesses told me in March that Wilkerson looked particularly portly at Temple Pro Day, the defensive lineman predictably fired off another workout video and boldly proclaimed: “They say I’m fat and out of shape?... Haha. Keep sleeping on me. I’m telling you. I love it.”

Wonderful. He loved it. Now, he’s hurt. “I’m going to play through it,” Wilkerson said this week. “I want to be out there.”

I believe him. He has 16.75 million reasons to want to be out there.

Wilkerson’s $16.75 million base salary in 2018 becomes fully guaranteed if he’s on the roster on the third day of the new league year next March. The Jets have an escape hatch though. The team will save $17 million with only a $3 million dead money charge against the 2018 cap if they designate Wilkerson as a post-June 1 cut, according to overthecap. com.

Managing the pain will be critical for Wilkerson, who revealed the nature of the shoulder injury after Bowles was intentionally vague on Wednesday. The coach finally conceded that Wilkerson had a “bruised” shoulder, but cautioned that “I’m not a doctor.”

Bowles was noticeably perturbed on Thursday after Wilkerson unwittingly made him look disingenuous a day earlier.

Bowles on why Wilkerson, who suffered the injury in a Week 2 loss in Oakland, didn’t get a MRI until this week: “I have no idea.”

Five minutes later, Bowles offered this about player injury/health updates: “I know everything.”

Regardless, there’s no reason to think that this injury won’t be a nuisance. But how big of a deal is a Grade 1 AC joint sprain?

I touched base with a current NFL team doctor, who made it clear that Wilkerson won’t be risking further injury by playing. The most conservative treatment plan would be to hold him out until he can practice without pain, but that’s simply unrealistic in the NFL.