Gibril Wilson - welcome to South Beach.
Various sources are reporting that the Dolphins have reached a 5 year deal with safety Gibril Wilson - formerly of the Raiders.
Wilson is a very similar player to Miami's own free agent safety, Yeremiah Bell - almost like a younger version of Bell, in fact. He was the only defensive back to have more tackles than Yeremiah last season. He's only 27, though, and has made more game-changing plays (sacks and interceptions) than Bell has in his career.
Adam Schefter is reporting that Wilson's five year deal with the Dolphins is worth $27.5 million, including $8 million in guaranteed money.
What's interesting to note, though, is how Schefter writes in his report that the Dolphins still might re-sign Yeremiah Bell, indicating that Wilson might actually play free safety in Miami.
Wilson has proven to be pretty durable over his 5 year career, missing just 4 games over the past 4 seasons. He's also been productive, tallying over 100 tackles 3 times in his short career. He also has 7.5 sacks and 10.5 tackles for loss in his career to go along with 13 career interceptions, 7 forced fumbles, and 6 fumble recoveries. And while he isn't as big of a hitter as Yeremiah Bell - though he's not too shabby by any stretch of the imagination - he runs better and is better in coverage than Bell.
Aaron Schatz, from Football Outisders, also likes Gibril Wilson a lot. Writes Schatz:
According to our individual defense stats, Gibril Wilson made 87 run plays this season (i.e. tackles or assists). That ranks seventh in the entire league -- D'Qwell Jackson of Cleveland was first with 106 -- but more importantly, the gap between Wilson and the rest of the league's safeties is colossal. Lawyer Milloy and Yeremiah Bell tied for second among safeties with just 58 run plays each. That would rank 45th among all defensive players. Not only that, but Wilson made his average run play after a gain of 4.7 yards, which is two yards closer than the average safety.
I currently have individual defense stats figured back to 1999, and Wilson ends up with more run plays than any safety in the database. The previous record was 86 run plays by Pat Tillman in 2000. Of course, Tillman was making his average play after a gain of 7.7 yards, which is a bit different from Wilson.
Something to note is that the three big moves the Dolphins have already done (re-signing Vernon Carey and Channing Crowder and now this move) really signify, in my opinion, that new owner Stephen Ross is indeed letting Bill Parcells and Jeff Ireland spend as much money as needed. So a big thanks has to go out to Mr. Ross for not coming in here and screwing this thing up, but rather letting Bill and Jeff work their magic.
I did also want to just point out the utter epic fail of the Sun-Sentinel's Omar Kelly - who just yesterday wrote that the Dolphins would likely pursue "bargain" free agents. I guess that's just another reason why, even though journalists have access to the team, that doesn't mean they actually have any knowledge on what that team plans on doing.
[Editor's Note by Matty I, 1:00 pm] Interesting to note that on MiamiDolphins.com, they make it a point to highlight how Wilson played SS last year in Oakland but played FS for the Giants on their Super Bowl champion team.
(Hat tip to phin101, endo3421, and Layuma for their FanPosts about the signing)