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Former AFL player Joel Wilkinson has joined the Arizona Cardinals less than a month after the team was defeated by the Carolina Panthers in the NFC championship game.
Wilkinson was one of four local zone players who joined the Gold Coast Suns ahead of 2011, their first year in the AFL, and played 26 games across his three years at the club.
He played ten games in 2013 but was delisted by the Suns at the end of the season and moved to Victoria where he played in the VFL with the Northern Blues.
However Wilkinson will now get a chance to earn as much or more than any AFL player if he can make it as a regular in the NFL.
Wilkinson largely played as a tagging defender in his time in the AFL and will play the role of a cornerback in the NFL, which he says is ‘very similar’ to the role he played at AFL level.
Wilkinson told the Cardinals he grew up watching the NFL and that becoming an NFL player was “something I have always aspired to be.”
He had been living in the area of Phoenix, Arizona for five months hoping to line up an NFL opportunity after quitting the VFL in July last year. After two tryouts with the Cardinals, he has gotten his wish.
Wilkinson, who is of Nigerian and Australian heritage, had his time at AFL level marred by two incidents of racial abuse, one from opposition player Justin Sherman, and one from a Collingwood supporter in the crowd.
The Cardinals have a history of bringing across Australian players having previously listed Colin Scotts in 1987 and another former AFL player in Ben Graham, who was a member of the Cardinals side that lost to the Patriorts in Super Bowl XLIII.
Wilkinson will enter the NFL with low expectations placed on him, especially in comparison to former NRL player Jarryd Hayne. Australian bookmaker TAB currently has him at long odds of $21 to ever play an NFL game.