Sports Buzz: A look at where Dolphins stand offensively and potential solutions

Are you assuming we keep Wallace, Gibson and Landry or are you advocating that we get rid of both Hartline & Wallace together and add a new piece with Gibson and Landry as starters?

Honestly, I don't care that much about this issue. I could see the team going either way. I'm not thrilled with Wallace. I think he's a horrible fit. I think Hartline is solid enough to keep but definitely too expensive.

 

I can't see Miami getting rid of Wallace unless they have another player signed and lined up to replace him. As much of a misfit as Wallace is, he's still our best WR. Which is saying a lot about our ability to acquire receivers over the last few years...

You guys need to look at this from Philbin and Hickey's perspective. They're on one year contracts. It's make or break for them. They have to go all in. It's do or die.

 

It's true that Philbin and Hickey are going to try and make moves that provide benefit in the short term, but Mike Wallace only racked up some 850 yards. Anybody getting the attention Mike Wallace did this year would have at least that if not more. If Hartline was in that position, he wouldn't have gotten the 10 TDs, but he probably would've gone over 1000 yards again.

Don't over-inflate Mike Wallace's value to this team. When you look at some of the highlight catches Mike had, you'll come to the conclusion that this was really a 6-8 TD year with a couple really fortunate plays mixed in. That's awesome but it's not going to happen the same way next year. I'm not convinced at all that Mike Wallace returns next year and posts 10 TDs again. On that other hand, I'm very convinced that for the 3rd year in a row he'll fail to reach even a meager 1000 yards.

Mike Wallace is ridiculously overpaid relative to what he's offering the team in my opinion. He's worse than Hartline. I would say that the Dolphins are probably going to get about 900 yards and 6 TDs from Wallace next year...is that really something that we need to cling to? Probably not.

It's the money that's keeping Wallace here, not the production.

 

No. I would rather keep Gibson.

 

No one is talking about a player like that. La'el Collins has played well at both spots and is physically capable of playing either spot in the NFL.

 

If I were them, I would be aiming for a revamped wide receivers unit. They're going to probably try and sell off Rishard Matthews. I'm not sure I would unless I liked the offer. I would get rid of Hartline and Wallace. I would actually CONSIDER keeping Gibson for the sake of continuity, depending on what free agent and draft options ended up open to me. For example if I'm able to snag a Jeremy Maclin who knows the system already, I'm not as worried about continuity.

But no I would not be considering Landry and Gibson the starters. If you subtract Hartline and Wallace you definitely must replace them. It probably means one big free agent signing (or trade?), and one significant (R1, R2 or R3) draft pick.

 

They're testing for it now though, unfortunately.

 

Prove it.

 

Looking at how the offense did in the 2nd half of the Jets game without even the threat of Wallace on the field, I think we see his value and how it helps the rest of the pass offense. He is missed when not on the field. Hartline isn't because his being out there does not draw coverage from anyone else.

As for 2014 really being a 6-8 TD year, and that a couple of his TDs were nothing but luck I guess, that is merely your interpretation. Saying he'll do less well in 2015 is nothing but 100% total speculation. When Tannehill targeted Wallace in 2014, his QB rating was 115. The best on the team. I do not have the gift of being able to see the future, unlike you I guess, so I do not know how he will do next year.

 

We've seen that repeatedly happen with Wallace. It's a trademark of the Philbin-era Dolphins. It has little to do with the 20-30 yards Wallace would produce or whatever strange ideas exist over what the coverage he does draws.

 

Look, I had Mike Wallace on my fantasy team because I thought Lazor would make him the star of the offense. I thought Wallace was poised to have a breakout type of year.

Well, as it turned out I was right and wrong. The yardage wasn't there but they forced the ball to him enough in the red zone early on that he got off to a huge start. He had 5 of his 10 TDs in the first 6 weeks of the season.

Don't get me wrong, I love the TDs but there are two major problems that I see. Firstly, Wallace made a few spectacular grabs that I'm not sure he's going to make year-in, year-out. He made a remarkable catch against Revis on a bad decision by Tannehill in week 1 that should've been broken up. He had a 1 handed catch against Buffalo. he made a remarkable catch before the half against New England in the second game. He made the great play-saving catch against Minnesota in week 16.

Can we count on him to do that again next year? You can call me crazy for saying those aren't sustainable kinds of catches. My retort would be that you're highly optimistic to think he's going to do that for you every year. I don't. I think this was a great year for him scoring-wise that is probably his high-water mark as a Miami Dolphin.

I think that reasonably we'll probably see him get about 6 to 8 TDs next year if he's here.

Another problem I see is that Wallace's production was bunched up in the early portion of the season. That was largely a product of Lazor and Tannehill forcing him the ball more than other players. Clay wasn't even around. Sims hadn't come on at that point. Landry wasn't getting as much attention either. Once all of those guys came on Wallace stopped getting as much attention and took almost twice as many games to produce the same number of TDs. In fact, after failing to score only once in the first 6 weeks, he failed to score 6 times in the remaining 10. The simple fact is that when Lazor and Tannehill aren't forcing Mike Wallace the ball, he's a 4-8 TDs per year type of guy. If the early trend had continued, Wallace would've wound up with 13-14 TDs.

I don't think he's going to get that kind of favoritism next year with what we know about Clay, Landry, Sims and whoever we may end up drafting or signing in free agency. The point is, when you force the ball to a guy, that player's statistics go up and that's what we did for the first several games of this season.

The real story is that Mike Wallace only had 862 yards as the premier target in this offense. Now that, quite honestly, is pathetic. I'm not saying Mike Wallace is a horrible player. I'm saying he's definitely a horrible fit for this offense and he should be viewed as such. People worry about Hartline's YAC but at least he got to 1000 yards. Mike Wallace couldn't even get close to that.

I'm not going to support team paying $10M for 862 yards worth of catches and a TD total that is inflated.

 

Wallace's yardage is mainly due to RT spreading the ball around. He had over 4k yards and when his leading receiver has 850, it is apparent they tried to distribute the ball to multiple targets rather than focus on one or two. The offense was more geared toward a short to intermediate passing game, rather than going deep very much. Wallace led the team in yards per catch, 12.9, but was only 57th in the league among WRs in that stat. At the same time, RT was 31st in yards per attempt at 6.9. Those are indications the passing attack did not place much emphasis on going deep very often.

I do not know if he'll make similar outstanding catches again next year, or not. He's shown he can do it, so it is possible. If you want to say he won't just because, well I do not have a crystal ball. So good for you.

You have no proof they were focusing on forcing the ball to Wallace early, or if he was just more often open at that time. Could be that teams were focusing on him more coverage wise as the year went along. There is evidence that Lazor's offense includes spreading the ball around, and getting multiple receivers involved.

If you think having Wallace on your Fantasy Team gives you more insight, well, I had him on my team too from Week 2 on, after I traded for him.

To say his TD total was inflated is just your saying it was all a fluke, when until we see if it happens again next year or somewhat close, there is no way to know. He's had 10 twice, and 8 twice, so it reasonable to surmise he could end up in that range again in coming years. I'll just wait and see, rather than proclaim he cannot do it again with nothing to support it except a bias toward the player.

 

For whatever reason you want to bring up...Mike had about 250-300 yards and 3-4 TDs left on the field when he was wide open and the ball didn't get to him.

Now if Ryan can get some time and step up and make these key throws next year you have a fantastic 1-2 punch. If Ryan fails to get him the ball in these spots like he did in 13-14??? Then hell....lets just sign every 5ft 7 white WR who can get open 10 yards in.

 

Wallace is the only receiver we have who consistently threatens the D. He may not make those spectacular plays again but he can more than make up for it if we can hit the plays where he's open behind the D. Bc of his salary I'm not totally against moving him but until we get some MUCH better alternatives we simply don't have the luxury.

 

If you guys want someone who will "shift the defense" why not just get Ted Ginn Jr back here for a 6-pack and a couple pieces of gum?

And saying "well he would've had more yards if the offense would've gone deep..."

...yeah, BUT WE DON'T and that's the point. What the hell are we doing with Mike Wallace here when (A) we don't throw deep and (B) you don't pay $10M a year for a decoy?


Look, you guys don't have to defend Mike Wallace. He was great in Pittsburgh and I've said that 1000 times now. But don't stand there and tell me that a decoy is worthy of $10M a year or that 862 yards is not replaceable in an offense that towards the end of the year was trying to spread the ball around so that no one got more than 5-6 catches a game.

If we throw to Rishard Matthews or Jarvis Landry or Brandon Gibson or Brian Hartline or Charles Clay or Dion Sims or some draft pick even while they're covered the way Tannehill did to Wallace so much this year (particularly early on) we'll see those guys be the beneficiary of more TDs than we expected as well.

 

The problem with Wallace is we don't have Ben Roethlisberger, we have Tannehill. Wallace needs to go to a team that will huck it, and that's not us. I don't know if Lazor is a huckster, but he's directly said they scaled that back to the things Tanny does well, and stripped out the things he doesn't do well. They've shrunk the field.

People want to talk about Wallace's 2012 but I'll point out it wasn't just Wallace who suffered learning the new Haley offense. Antonio Brown went from a 16ypc receiver to 12 which is a huge 25% drop in 2012. They've obviously figured Haley's offense out, and while playing out of his mind, he's still topping out at 13 ypc or so. You saw Ben's ypa drop from 7.9/8.2 down to 7.3 for two years, now back up to 8.1 just this year. If Wallace stayed back in Pitt I'm betting they would have figured it out as we saw Wallace can adjust his tricks just a little.

Or perhaps he just needs an offensive genius like Arians. Wallace to the Cardinals to replace Fitzy?

 

Expected, schmected. Expect in one hand, poop in the other, and see which fills up first. Just sayin, where'd all those "expected points" go then? Ironically, the offense scores more points with him operating as a bystander than whatever that bogus EPA stat tries to suggest WADR.

 

I'm glad we've revised the production left on the field down from Randy Moss at the top of his game down to simply better than Wallace has ever performed in his career.

 

Is that any different for the typical downfield receiver in the NFL?

 

I don't think Wallace gets traded to a team where he can plausibly recreate his success. From a PR standpoint, it would be really problematic for Hickey. Wallace is also enough of an ******* that there's a schadenfreude element to the whole thing.

It's only a handful of teams really(Arizona, Indy, etc.) but somewhere like Oakland would be perfect.

 

And they're crazy enough to do it.

Hickey can easily spin it, if compensation is decent (we signed him as an FA). Mismatch for our concepts etc. He could very well go to AZ and still bomb. They have Floyd and a promising John Brown over there. They just need some consistency at QB.

 

Can someone clarify how trading a player affects a team's salary cap? Isn't trading a player the same as cutting them, in regards to dead cap money?