On a hasty path to becoming an all-time draft bust, offensive lineman Isaiah Wilson is getting a new start with a fresh franchise following a disastrous rookie campaign.
Wilson, the 2020 first-round pick of the Tennessee Titans, has been traded to the Miami Dolphins, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported Monday. The Titans are sending Wilson and a 2022 seventh-round pick to the Dolphins for a 2021 seventh-round selection.
The trade comes roughly two weeks removed from Wilson tweeting that his days were over as a Titans football player. He quickly deleted the tweet, but it proved to be fortuitous.
"I'm done with football as a Titan," Wilson, 22, posted in the deleted tweet. "No further comments."
No further comments will really need be made for Tennessee, which took a chance on Wilson and was left with little choice but to move on after a first season in which Wilson touched the field in just one game and made far more noise off of it.
Titans general manager Jon Robinson said prior to Wilson's tweet that he had not spoken directly with Wilson since the O-lineman was placed on the reserve/non-football injury list in December. That was the conclusion to Wilson's head-scratching rookie season and Monday signals the end to his troubled, no matter how brief, time in Tennessee.
Taken 29th overall in the NFL draft, Wilson was the final first-round selection to sign his rookie contract, though he had already been placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list before he inked his deal. It was a neon sign of things to come. .
When the Titans took the 6-foot-6, 350-pounder out of Georgia, it was seen by plenty as a risky pick with Wilson viewed as a project and the 29th spot as a reach.
In the end, the risky business of picking Wilson paid off with just one game played, which saw him play three offensive snaps and one snap on special teams.
On two occasions, Wilson was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list.
In August, he was involved in an incident at Tennessee State University in which police responded to the smell of marijuana at an off-campus apartment and reported that the player went to the second-floor balcony where he appeared briefly to consider jumping, per the Associated Press. Following that incident, Wilson was arrested and charged with a DUI in September.
The Titans placed Wilson on the NFI list in December ahead of Week 14.
Now, Wilson will look to rebuild his image and restart the work on fulfilling his first-round potential under Brian Flores and his staff. If anyone can get the youngster to turn things around before becoming a forgotten first-rounder mentioned only in lists of great draft busts, Flores would seem to be tops among the candidates. Wilson and Flores are each graduates of Poly Prep High in Brooklyn, New York and have known each other for years, NFL Network's Peter Schrager noted.
Short and tumultuous, the days of Wilson in Tennessee have concluded with a new horizon appearing in Miami.
