"Is Mike Wallace worth the fifth overall draft pick"

[drewgrif]

Obviously, the Steelers could not afford to tender Wallace with a first round pick.  A team like New England (or another AFC rival) could come in with a late first rounder and deem it worthy of that pick.
But, WHAT IF THE BUCS SWAP FIRST ROUND PICKS WITH THE STEELERS AND GET WALLACE ON THE TRADE DOWN?

Would that be worth it? 

[Dolorous Jason]

Obviously, the Steelers could not afford to tender Wallace with a first round pick.  A team like New England (or another AFC rival) could come in with a late first rounder and deem it worthy of that pick.
But, WHAT IF THE BUCS SWAP FIRST ROUND PICKS WITH THE STEELERS AND GET WALLACE ON THE TRADE DOWN?

Would that be worth it?

Now if we could do THAT then yes I think it would be worth it. 

[JDouble]

Obviously, the Steelers could not afford to tender Wallace with a first round pick.  A team like New England (or another AFC rival) could come in with a late first rounder and deem it worthy of that pick.
But, WHAT IF THE BUCS SWAP FIRST ROUND PICKS WITH THE STEELERS AND GET WALLACE ON THE TRADE DOWN?

Would that be worth it?

Absolutely....but it would never happen. We'd have Wallace, the 24th pick, and the 36th pick. Fun to dream.

Maybe if we include Faine and Talib in the trade?! lol

[ufojoe]

Vincent Jackson or Mike Wallace?

Excerpt from the Pittsburgh paper...

http://plus.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/pro-sports/steelers/114962-ed-what-is-mike-wallace-worth

The Steelers are willing to have Wallace test the market, and if indeed he signs a contract and they deem it too high, they'll take a first-round draft choice in return and have two first-round picks for only the second time since the 1970s NFL merger (the other was 1989).   

So what is Mike Wallace worth? His first three seasons have been rocket-like, with him climbing higher and higher. However, in the middle of what seemed to be his best and record-setting season, Wallace fizzled. 

Through the first eight games, Wallace caught 43 passes for 800 yards, on pace for a 1,600-yard season that would have obliterated the team record by more than 200 yards.  However, in the final eight games he caught 29 passes for only 393 yards. He averaged 18.6 yards a catch in the first half of the season, just 13.6 in the second half to finish with a career low average of 16.6 yards per catch.   

He topped it off with a miserable playoff game in Denver, where he caught three passes for 26 yards.   

Here's the question the Steelers and other prospective suitors in free agency must determine: Did defenses figure out Mike Wallace finally as the one-trick pony that Mike Tomlin long declared he was? Wallace is at his best running the "go" routes and outside flag patterns, where he has a chance to outrun someone. However, when faced with cover two defenses and safeties hanging deep, he's not as effective. He does not seem to fight for the ball at times and even gives up on some when covered.     

During this slump by Wallace in the second half of the season, Antonio Brown emerged like a Jeremy Lin. He clearly was the team's best receiver in the second half of the season. Curiously, Brown's rise should have helped Wallace because Brown's best asset is taking a short to medium range pass and running with it.     

Maybe all the final eight games and one playoff game merely was a slump for Wallace and he will return to the kind of production he had in the first half of 2011. But as teams turn on the tape, they have to be surprised at the difference between the first half Wallace and the second half Wallace of 2011.

[TBayXXXVII]

Intersting perspective on Walllace, I didn't realize that.  Although, I'd still take him.  At worst, he'd still give us that downfield threat and help Williams and Benn get open more.  That being said, I still say that Bowe is the guy to target... even if the Chiefs tag him, I'd still sign him.  After Bowe, I'd take a run at Wallace next.  The fact that the Bucs have the #36 pick would probably be enough to satisfy the Steelers.  Teams don't readily give away first round picks to for any tagged player, but with only the Rams, Colts, and Vikings picking ahead of us, there's an excellent chance that the Steelers would rather have pick #36 and save the $ on Wallce.

[ufojoe]

Intersting perspective on Walllace, I didn't realize that.  Although, I'd still take him.  At worst, he'd still give us that downfield threat and help Williams and Benn get open more.  That being said, I still say that Bowe is the guy to target... even if the Chiefs tag him, I'd still sign him.  After Bowe, I'd take a run at Wallace next.  The fact that the Bucs have the #36 pick would probably be enough to satisfy the Steelers.  Teams don't readily give away first round picks to for any tagged player, but with only the Rams, Colts, and Vikings picking ahead of us, there's an excellent chance that the Steelers would rather have pick #36 and save the $ on Wallce.

Pittsburgh will get better offers than the 36th pick, IMO.

I didn't know this about Wallace either and I'm not sure if he is the way to go for the Bucs.

[drewgrif]

Obviously, the Steelers could not afford to tender Wallace with a first round pick.  A team like New England (or another AFC rival) could come in with a late first rounder and deem it worthy of that pick.
But, WHAT IF THE BUCS SWAP FIRST ROUND PICKS WITH THE STEELERS AND GET WALLACE ON THE TRADE DOWN?

Would that be worth it?

Absolutely....but it would never happen. We'd have Wallace, the 24th pick, and the 36th pick. Fun to dream.

Maybe if we include Faine and Talib in the trade?! lol

The Steelers would actually save money by doing it this way.  Not that far fetched.  The bad thing is we picked right before Pittsburgh in the 3rd round and selected Roy MIller.
Boooo

[dalbuc]

Intersting perspective on Walllace, I didn't realize that.  Although, I'd still take him.  At worst, he'd still give us that downfield threat and help Williams and Benn get open more.  That being said, I still say that Bowe is the guy to target... even if the Chiefs tag him, I'd still sign him.  After Bowe, I'd take a run at Wallace next.  The fact that the Bucs have the #36 pick would probably be enough to satisfy the Steelers.  Teams don't readily give away first round picks to for any tagged player, but with only the Rams, Colts, and Vikings picking ahead of us, there's an excellent chance that the Steelers would rather have pick #36 and save the $ on Wallce.

Yeah and these numbers are scary, I hadn't realized he had this sort of drop off:

Sept: 21 catches - 18.0 ypc
Oct: 22 catches - 19.2 ypc

Nov: 12 catches - 11.9 ypc
Dec: 16 catches - 15.2 ypc
January: 1 catches - 11.0 ypc

He really tailed off in total in the second half.

[TBayXXXVII]

I will say in Wallace's defense, that December can't really be blamed on Wallace.  Ben got hurt in that Cleveland game and no receiver really did that well since then (we all so how crappy he looked in that playoff game too).   Also, let's look at November.  Pittsburgh only played 3 games that month... 2 against Cincy and the other against KC.  Cincinnati has a solid defense and is a division opponent, those 2 things don't usually bode well for an offense.  As for KC, they had a pretty decent defense, especially at home... look at what they did to the Packers.  Also, look at 2010, he didn't really show a lot of signs of slowing down at the end of the year.  What, it took 40 games for teams to finally adjust to Wallace?  It doesn't take that long.

[Cerious]

I will say in Wallace's defense, that December can't really be blamed on Wallace.  Ben got hurt in that Cleveland game and no receiver really did that well since then (we all so how crappy he looked in that playoff game too).   Also, let's look at November.  Pittsburgh only played 3 games that month... 2 against Cincy and the other against KC.  Cincinnati has a solid defense and is a division opponent, those 2 things don't usually bode well for an offense.  As for KC, they had a pretty decent defense, especially at home... look at what they did to the Packers.  Also, look at 2010, he didn't really show a lot of signs of slowing down at the end of the year.  What, it took 40 games for teams to finally adjust to Wallace?  It doesn't take that long.

Not only that but, Antonio Brown really emerged as Ben's go to guy while teams were rolling additional ccoverage to Wallace's side.

[TBayXXXVII]

I will say in Wallace's defense, that December can't really be blamed on Wallace.  Ben got hurt in that Cleveland game and no receiver really did that well since then (we all so how crappy he looked in that playoff game too).   Also, let's look at November.  Pittsburgh only played 3 games that month... 2 against Cincy and the other against KC.  Cincinnati has a solid defense and is a division opponent, those 2 things don't usually bode well for an offense.  As for KC, they had a pretty decent defense, especially at home... look at what they did to the Packers.  Also, look at 2010, he didn't really show a lot of signs of slowing down at the end of the year.  What, it took 40 games for teams to finally adjust to Wallace?  It doesn't take that long.

Not only that but, Antonio Brown really emerged as Ben's go to guy while teams were rolling additional ccoverage to Wallace's side.

True.  A legitimate arguement can be made that while Wallace's numbers dropped, him just being on the field allowed others to improve.  Also remember, Pittsburgh was 19th is pass attempts.  They are a 55/45 pass to run team, and today that's a conservative offense.  We also saw in that other post about offensive lines that the Steelers O-Line wasn't really all that good.  Come the 2nd half when they were playing better defenses and had an injured QB, the opportunites for Wallace probably weren't there as often.