Veteran wide receiver restructures his contract
Wilson accepts steep pay cut to create cap space
The Miami Dolphins restructured the contract of veteran receiver Albert Wilson on Tuesday, doing their part to ensure that the Port St. Lucie native will be part of the team in 2020.
Wilson was scheduled to earn $9.5 million in base salary and a workout bonus, and had a cap hit of more than $10.8 million. But none of that money was guaranteed, so the Dolphins could have cut him at any time to create $9.5 million in cap space.
According to a league source, Wilson will now earn $3 million in base salary, and $1 million of that is guaranteed. He also has the potential to earn $1 million in incentives tied to playing time.
His new contract makes him the second-highestpaid receiver on the team, behind only DeVante Parker. Wilson had previously been the fourth-highest-paid player on the team when it came to base salary.
While Wilson will make roughly half of what he was slated to earn in 2020, he’ll now have a realistic chance to earn the slot receiver role without economics being a factor. Also, if the Dolphins had cut him between now and training camp, it’s unlikely that he would have landed a lucrative deal elsewhere because most teams already have full rosters.
The Dolphins clearly want to see if Wilson, 27, can regain the form he had in 2018 — when he led the NFL in yards after catch — before suffering a hip injury that needed a full year to heal.
Wilson caught a careerhigh 43 passes last season, but he looked like a shell of his former self when it came to creating separation from defensive backs. He finished the season with 351 receiving yards and a touchdown catch. He also gained 45 yards on five carries and threw one pass for 20 yards in the gadget role Miami carved out for the run-aftercatch specialist.
If Wilson can regain his old form and evolve into a reliable slot receiver in Chan Gailey’s offense, Miami could have something special because he proved he had the potential to be a dynamic weapon in 2018, when he caught 26 passes for 391 yards and scored four touchdowns in seven games before suffering his season-ending hip injury.
Wilson will likely compete with Jakeem Grant, Allen Hurns, Isaiah Ford, Gary Jennings Jr., Ricardo Louis and Mark Hollins for one of the receiver spots behind Parker and Preston Williams.
Receiver is one of the team’s deepest positions, which explains why the Dolphins didn’t address it in the draft. Miami, however, did sign wideouts Kirk Merritt of Arkansas State and Matt Cole from McKendree University as undrafted rookie free agents.