Switching codes with the aim of playing in the National Football League (NFL), he signed with the Arizona Cardinals in February 2016.

Wilkinson is a prominent anti-racism campaigner, alleging that institutional racism ended his career in the AFL and lodging a racial discrimination complaint against the league with the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Wilkinson signed up to play for the Broadbeach Australian Football Club's under 18 team in 2009 and was chosen to represent the Gold Coast Stingrays in state competition later that year.

He began playing senior football for Broadbeach in 2010 and in just his fourth game earned a nomination for the AFLQ Rising Star Award.

[5] At the conclusion of the 2010 season, Wilkinson was drafted as a Queensland zone selection by his hometown Gold Coast Suns who were entering the professional Australian Football League in 2011.

Wilkinson made his professional debut for the Gold Coast Suns in round 14 of the 2011 AFL season, against the Western Bulldogs.

During Wilkinson's AFL career he traveled to Arizona on three separate occasions from 2011 to 2013 for off-season training and was a standout in the high altitude drills.