Hickey And Wallace Had A Sit Down To Discuss Future

When a previously great player is signed for a lot of money, the fantasy that he'll play similarly for one's team can override one's perceptions of reality. And once again, it's a whole lot easier to succumb to that fantasy when one is responsible for neither footing the bill for the player's salary, nor the success of the team as a function of whether its players are producing in a way that's consistent with their salaries. If and when you become the GM of the team and your livelihood is riding on it, let me know if you're still willing to revolve around the world of fantasy.

 

Here here!!

Yes, get rid of the guy who led the team's WRs in TDs and who led the next leading WR on the team by twice as many. Also, it's comical that it means nothing to some that Wallace has been WIDE open many a time. There were even some anti-Wallace guys who admitted that they were a bit off on their criticism of Wallace and praised his efforts. It was obvious if you actually watched the games and were objective rather than clearly agenda based. Look, I mentioned how, during the last few games, Tanne seemed to finally get better with the deep ball to Wallace. He finally seemed to start getting that rhythm and timing and muscle memory down much better. It is such a shame that the season had to end because they will have to build that chemistry once again. It's a shame he couldn't get more time to reinforce what he was building. Oh well. I hope they continue from there during the off-season.

 

Was Wallace wide open without being hit any more often than the average receiver of his type in the league?

 

The idea is to build on our strengths not get rid of them. Youre basically blaming Wallace for his inability to overcome deficiencies elsewhere on the team, the run game and pass pro specifically. Improve those two and Wallace-Tannehill will be every bit as dynamic as we all expect them to be.

 

Can I borrow your crystal ball when you're done with it? I'm about to go buy a lottery ticket.

 

Buy a clue while you're at it

 

Here's a clue I got from some very basic research: objectively speaking, Wallace's production has had nothing to do with the running game or the pass protection. Once again, you have a hypothesis about how parts of the team relate that is completely controverted by the objective evidence. Anyone can sit back and say "if X, then Y," and sometimes those speculations are indeed plausible. But it's possible to investigate those hypotheses further and see if those relationships actually exist in reality.

 

Wallace came here as a novice in Philbin's style of offense and has managed to retool his game to become more of what Philbin wants in a WR, while maintaining his rep as an any down TD threat. The lack of deep connections should not be laid at his feet, nor Tannehill's. Its more a function of the offense being a quick pass attack with sub par run game and pass pro. In Pittsburgh the offense was designed to attack downfield and Ben is a master of extending plays to give his WRs time to work down field, that's not the case in Miami so of course Wallace's big play numbers have gone down.

Still, if we can get a more consistent run game and better pass pro the opportunities will come, via play action and more favorable coverages. Tannehill-Wallace is the least of my worries.

 

WADR, your research doesn't seem to involve watching games or having a basic understanding of how football works.

 

Absolutely. Go watch the tape

 

Was he? ...especially two seasons ago. Go check it out, but remember, this is a perfect example where stats itself won't give you the entire true picture. Just watch the games.

 

F'ing LOL. I just saw your response as I posted mine.

 

And he still had 10 TDs. Not bad for a one trick pony eh?

 

I don't think anyone is going to believe this insinuation that you've watched any "tapes" that aren't a well-worn VHS of "Dunston Checks In".

It's simply not there. Not when you take away the plays where Wallace can realistically be thrown the ball by any actual NFL quarterback including Big Ben. I don't think I've seen a single example of this brought up where there wasn't ample reason for the defenders that should have been guarding Wallace to begin working back towards whomever was targeted.

And they're surely out there. Just a tenth of what's being insinuated.

 

This offense will take a step back without Wallace. I'm not saying he's great (he's not), but the offense will not be as good without him. To me it's that simple. If you want Tannehill to still have a chance to keep improving, cutting Mike Wallace is sending things in the wrong direction. He led the team in TDs and is the only big-play chunk yardage guy we have, who has a special athletic trait that teams have to gameplan for.

Surely losing him would mean adding a new #1 with a big investment, probably an unknown quantity in the draft. Or else you're looking at Hartline and Landry drawing the opposition's #1 CB. No thanks.

 

Him leading the team in touchdown's is pretty much his only selling point. In the meantime, he's put up one godawful year, and one pretty pedestrian year.

Nor is Wallace a particularly good "chunk yardage" guy.

He's had 21 plays of 20+ yards as a Dolphin. During that time period Charles Clay has had 19, and Brian Hartline 18. That's with Clay playing hurt a good portion of this season, and Hartline on the back-burner.

You're basically damning your team and your young, promising quarterback to a situation where his #1 receiver is a guy with OK production who is most noteworthy for red-zone production.

That's a good situation pretty much only for fantasy football.

 

There is no fantasy. The swap I'm referring to is a skillset swap. Wallace hasn't performed near to what anyone wanted and IMO may never do that. There's a skill mismatch involved. It might be my economics training but the ROI on Wallace is far too low and his restriction on the cap is far too high. I'd rather somebody with a skill set that can work to Tannehill's strengths. If you just think that people you don't agree with live in a fantasy, that's on you.

 

I think the thing to look at is what both say after this, then I think we will gain a better understanding on what went on in the meeting.

If Wallace comes out and says the meeting went great, and we're moving forward for the betterment of the team, we can probably surmise he will be back. If he comes out and says that there were discussions and comments no further, he may just be getting the axe.

Sticky situation, because you have to wonder if Wallace progresses from a decent year? Honestly, I saw a fighter out there. His late-season rant could arguably have been within reason. The players may be frustrated because they know they are close. Let's see how they respond coming out next year.

 

The team has opted for using deflated beach balls when throwing deep. Wallace can surely catch those.

 

How can you question whether he's watched tape in the same post where you say you haven't seen a single instance? What are you looking at? It's hard to find a game where Wallace ISNT open for a big play at least once.

 

It was obvious last year that Philbin and Sherman felt the deep ball disconnect was on Tannehill. Philbin had to call Tanny aside and tell him to stop thinking and let it rip. Sherman said several times he was getting open and they just weren't getting him the ball, but praised what he did for the offense.

They even started counting the number of times Wallace was open and he was overthrown, underthrown, or there was a checkdown. This is clearly a count that was negative towards Tanny.

So this doesn't make Wallace elite, or all of a sudden someone worth his money. It means he was open deep and Tanny didn't hit him, further depressing the value out of Wallace.

 

I can already hear the Tannehill apologists this coming season if Wallace is cut or traded and Tannehill doesn't continue to improve.

They will be stating that the reason Tannehill wasn't as productive is because the Dolphins have lousy WR's.

When it comes to Tannehill, the problems on offense never comes back to his play on the field. It is always the fault of the receivers, running backs or the offensive line.

The same people wanting Wallace gone will be the same people blaming the lack of quality WR's next season when the offense isn't as productive as it was this past season.

 

I was agreeing with you in the post you quoted, speaking about the fantasy others have that Wallace will somehow regain his 2009-2011 form with the Dolphins. And I'm in complete agreement that the team needs to move forward by acquiring YAC receivers.

 

I'm talking of the instances that are being cited as Wallace having been supposedly wide open.

It's frequently coupled with claims of an increasingly ludicrious number of yards and touchdowns that were left on the field. Wallace would apparently put up prime Randy Moss numbers, if only for Tannehill.

 

And isn't that the fantasy?

And if that's the fantasy, and it hasn't become a reality, then we preserve the most hope in its future occurrence by attributing the absence of it thus far to anything and anyone but Wallace himself. If we blame Wallace himself, then our hopes are all but dashed.

So the next step, then, in preserving the fantasy is to hypothesize that the quarterback, pass protection, and running game are all at fault, and that when those other areas of the team get "cleared up," Wallace will likewise follow suit, having had his game derailed by all of them, with no contribution of his own to his plight.

Never mind, of course, that when those other areas of the team perform well, Wallace does no better himself. That information is of no import.

It's amazing how the human being can make himself believe whatever he wants. Hell, we have people over in the Middle East right now who believe that beheading and setting people afire is the right thing to do. Certainly Mike Wallace pales in comparison.

 

Your backhanded "jokes" are even bad?? Dunston checks in?? Pretty much explains a few things though i suppose.

Either way Bob Saget, your entire argument against Wallace is weak, and you change your reasoning depending on the argument. You have been proven wrong about topics such as cant run a route, defenses do not play him any different yada ya ya...you just keep blabbing.

 

I really don't understand the arguments anymore.. why does it all have to be so black and white?


1) Yes, Wallace is an asset to this team offensively, he is very fast, gets open deep, and scores TDs
2) Yes, his contract is a little overbloated
3) No, Tannehill is not a great deep ball thrower
4) Yes, Wallace has a small catch radius and should be catching more balls when he is as open as he is
5) Yes, Tannehill and Wallace must work on their chemistry
6) Yes, Wallace caused some turmoil in the last game of the season
7) Yes, there should be some questions as to whether Wallace hurts the chemistry of this team based on his actions, but we as fans have very little information to reach any further conclusions.

I don't get why we can't accept all of these arguments, they don't contradict each other, and actually complement each other.

 

The part that's indeed black-and-white is that Wallace's contract is highly (not just a little) inconsistent with his production.

Again, obviously teams have a better chance of winning when their salary cap expenditures for individual players match the individual contributions of those players. When a player counts a great deal more against his team's cap than his production warrants, the team suffers because: 1) it isn't getting production consistent with its salary cap expenditure for that player, which creates a need elsewhere on the roster to compensate for that player's lack of production, and 2) the team has less money left over to infuse talent through the rest of its roster and thereby achieve that compensation for the player's lack of production.

In other words, the player is essentially creating a problem whose solution he himself is interfering with via his salary.

And we haven't even touched the issue of whether a receiver who is downfield speed and little else is a good fit with the team's current quarterback. The team's current quarterback thrives on the short and intermediate passing game, and so receivers who are sure-handed in those areas and who have strong YAC ability are the best fits with him. That isn't Wallace.

So, when you add all that up, you have a player who is woefully out of place in many ways. He's highly overpaid and highly miscast based on his abilities. And we haven't even yet touched the idea that he's disruptive, but even without that, a strong argument can be made that he shouldn't be on the team.

 

Wallace is overpaid but is much more of a contributor than given credit for, and he still does his part in getting open deep. You replace him in 2016

 

I can't think of a single non-playoff team in the league whose failure to make the playoffs is attributable to a single player. Surely whether a team's failure to make the playoffs can be attributable to a single player shouldn't be the measure of whether a player should be retained. Do we keep all players unless they can be individually blamed for the entirety of the team's inability to succeed at an adequate level?

Who is the threat for the Super Bowl champion Patriots?

 

Tom Brady and some guy named Gronk.

 

And who was it in 2013, when the Patriots went 8-3 in games in which he didn't play, including a playoff win, and made the AFC Championship game?

Tom Brady alone? You mean they didn't stop him with "almost 11 men in the box"?

 

Yawn, even more discrediting of great players to reach for a non existent point.

 

No, I wouldn't, and it's a rather lazy argument tactic to try.

Mike Wallace is not overpaid in the same context most free agents are. Feel free to look through the top couple players at each position:

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/contracts/

Outside of Maurkice Pouncey and maybe 1-2 other guys, no one is remotely as close to overpaid vs. their merits as Wallace.

It's absolutely about cap space and pay. The money you are wasting has a direct correlation to talent you don't have.

Mike Wallace also essentially blocks you from other acquisitions at the position, and limits you to whatever mediocre performance he's giving you. You can't add a big money free agent to the position, and you're not really in a position to support a successful draft pick and keep him happy.

It's funny how there isn't ever any decent, specific examples of this occurring.

It's almost like you should have reached the point where you've totally exhausted the amount of content-less posts one person can make on a topic.

 

Tom Brady's style the past two years is exactly what Ryan Tannehill does well. There is no discrediting of Brady, but simply a comparison between he and Tannehill in terms of what it means for players like Mike Wallace. Clearly teams can win (and win big) without a deep threat, and with a quarterback who throws accurately short and intermediate to sure-handed YAC receivers.

 

Again, I see QBs overthrow/underthrow open receivers deep in almost every game I watch. Some guys, Wilson for example, despite having no namers, have receivers that go up and get the ball. Other guys like Luck, for instance, have receivers who are able to adjust to balls in the air better. Wallace doesn't do either of those very well. I know, I'm going to get called a hater, or whatever, it's just the truth. I think he upped his short/intermediate game last season, but I don't think he's redoing his 2010 season anytime soon.

 

While Im not a huge fan of Wallace, Id think taking away a playmaker on this offense that needs playmakers would be just an awful idea.

 

Again, Wallace being open and not getting catchable ball was such an issue they started counting it, if Armando is to be believed.

 

This is a game where you are provided limited resources. Allocation of those resources is a fundamental aspect of the NFL.

This seems to be a common theme of the debates re: Mike Wallace. There is a contingent that chooses to plug their ears and ignore the economics of the NFL.