A Look At The Mike Wallace Situation

Mike Wallace, the speedy number one wide receiver of the Pittsburgh Steelers will be back in 2012 but will he be wearing black and gold beyond that?  We all hope so but don’t hold your collective breaths.  Traditionally the Steelers make the right moves when it comes to their free agents and aging veterans and always let them go at just the right time.  They traded away Santonio Holmes for a 5^th round pick a few years ago and while Holmes is a good player, they haven’t missed him.  They let Joey Porter go, they let Chris Hope go, they let Alan Faneca go and on and on. The point of it is; have any of those guys gone on to make a big splash in the league after they left the Steelers? No. On the other hand think of some of the guys they’ve re signed over that same time span, Hines Ward, Troy Polamalu, James Farrior, Casey Hampton and Ben Roethlisberger to name a few. The Steelers always know. And they know again. They know Wallace is a premiere receiver just entering the prime of his career, a potential perennial pro bowler with a world of talent.  They’ve made it clear they want to keep him but at what cost and will he allow that?  Wallace is a guy that will be heard from around the league whether he’s in Pittsburgh or not.  The Steelers know that and he knows that. 

Wallace will return in 2012 because no other team offered him a contract by the April 20^th deadline for restricted free agents. When the clock hit April 21^st, the Steelers retained the rights to keep him for one more year.  They’ve offered him a 2.7 million dollar one year tender. Wallace has stated publicly he will not sign the offer until he ‘absolutely has to’.  In other words, he’s not happy.  It’s been reported that Wallace wants a deal comparable to Larry Fitzgerald, 8 years, 120 million.  That’s not going to happen, at least not in Pittsburgh.  The Steelers will never pay a wide receiver 15 million dollars a year. All of us in the Steel Nation value Wallace highly, but the Steelers don’t value his position highly. It has nothing to do with the numbers he’s put up in his first three seasons or the numbers he’s capable of putting up in his next five or six. It’s about the numbers the Steelers really care about, cap space and rushing the football.

 The Steelers are a traditionally frugal franchise and currently sit a mere 6 to 8 million below the 2012 salary cap. Wrapping up Wallace with a long term contract worth that kind of money would be crippling to the team.  It would hinder their ability to keep their best players at other positions, something they must do in order to stay competitive year in and year out.  Wallace will not be offered Fitzgerald money by this organization.  The Steelers will make him an offer they deem fair, but never at the expense of allowing the rest of the positions on the field to lack Steeler quality talent. The Steelers are great at ‘spreading the wealth’ and not putting all their proverbial eggs in one basket. 

The Steelers also do not value the wide receiver position as highly as other organizations around the league. Even with the team loaded with talents such as Wallace, Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders at the receiver position and Big Ben tossing them the ball, they want to focus on the run.  That hurts Wallace’s long term chances of staying for the money he wants. Wallace can certainly open the field up, even helping the rushing attack in that regard but the Steelers want the rushing attack to open up the passing attack and they’ll focus on that first. Art Rooney II has made it clear twice in the past three off seasons that this is what he wants.  They fired (or forced him into “retirement”) Bruce Arians to prove they aren’t messing around. Arians was a big supporter of the pass attack first. This is not the style that ownership deems Steeler football.  If the higher ups within the organization feel that rushing the ball is and should be the primary focus on an offense loaded with a air game as talented as this then Wallace again has a strike against him when it comes to his long term possibilities here for the money he wants.

The bottom line is this; what is reasonable for the team, what is Wallace willing to take to stay and what will other teams offer him as he becomes an unrestricted free agent after 2012? In a day and age when Pierre Garcon is getting 9 million per year from the Washington Redskins, Mike Wallace is worth at least 10 or 11 million a year.  That spells trouble for all of us Wallace fans and our hope and desire for him to stay. The Steelers would surely offer 6 million, maybe even 8, but 10 to 11, let alone 15 just won’t happen. 

Wallace is valuable, a guy the black and gold need. He’s a guy any QB would love. He’s the fastest guy in the league and one thing you can’t coach is speed. He can run the deep route with the best of them. Wallace can beat most corners by two to three yards and Big Ben will hit him in stride more often than not.  In his first three seasons Wallace has caught 171 balls for an average of 18.7 yards per catch. 130 of those catches or 76%, have been for first downs. That’s number one receiver material, no question. Add the fact that 24 of those have been for Touchdowns, an average of 8 per year and you have a super star in the making.

Many in the Steel Nation like to say Wallace is greedy and replaceable when they hear about his monetary demands. They’ll say the team has Antonio Brown so let Wallace go.  I disagree.  He’s not replaceable, Antonio Brown, as much as we love him, is.  Brown has speed too, but a lot of his production came as Wallace drew double teams down the stretch. No, you don’t want to pay a guy 15 mil per year to draw defenders away from your number 2 receivers, but the point is, he’s so good that he calls for double coverage from opposing defenses!  He’s so fast that safeties and corners cringe when they have to cover him. He’s not just a ‘go deep’ guy either. Wallace can run routes and isn’t afraid to go over the middle.  He’s good for 1,200 yards a season if not more. He’s also got phenomenal hands.  Think about the final play of the 2009 Steelers vs. Packers game to see what I mean. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6vaR0nobrU and see for yourself.  He’s an all around, complete receiver; that is very hard to come by.

The Steelers know they have Wallace for 2012 so they’ll take their time in trying to extend him beyond that. He has to play at least 6 games to earn a year of service for 2012 or he faces a restricted free agency next off season. He certainly won’t allow that to happen. He needs to sign his 2.7 million tender by June 15^th or the Steelers have the right to drop 2.1 million from that salary for 2012. If it gets to that point, things could get ugly.  The anticipation here is he’ll sign the deal somewhere around June 14^th, he’ll report to camp, he’ll play a full year and put up some large numbers and he’ll bolt next year via free agency to a big spender. If the Steelers want to keep him long term then they’ll need to get this worked out this summer. Still having salary cap issues, rookie draftees to sign, other key players to sign whose contracts are coming up and the Steelers traditional hardnosed stance on both the air attack and salaries paid; it seems like we’ll be cheering for Wallace one more season and then watching him outrun the Steelers offers in the free agent market next offseason.