Minnesota Vikings must move on from Mike Wallace

With more rushing attempts (474) than passing attempts (454) in the 2015 regular season, the Minnesota Vikings offense was based entirely on running the ball, as Adrian Peterson won the rushing title, whereas second-year quarterback Teddy Bridgewater‘s touchdown percentage, yards per game, and yards per attempt numbers all fell.

When the Minnesota Vikings acquired Mike Wallace from the Miami Dolphins, they thought they were getting a speedy, veteran receiver who could be a No. 1 option in the passing attack, with hyped breakout candidate and SPARQ star Charles Johnson supporting him. Of course, Johnson would go the entire season without making a real impact on the offense, whereas Wallace would actually be used, but still finish the season as a non-factor.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Mark Craig, Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer stated that he wants Wallace to return in 2016, but it’s admittedly impossible for me to envision a situation in which Wallace is retained. Even though he caught just 39 passes for 473 yards and two touchdowns in what amounted to a “lost” year in a Vikings uniform, Wallace is a competent receiver who, prior to the 2015 season, was a lock for at least five touchdowns.

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That said, while Wallace has talent, speed, and touchdown-scoring ability that make him useful in the right set-up, he isn’t good enough to succeed without being in the perfectly correct environment. He went from being a star with the Pittsburgh Steelers to a good-but-not-great “X” receiver with the Miami Dolphins to a bottom-of-the-table receiver in Minnesota for a reason. Wallace’s play is dictated by the style of quarterback and offense he’s in, meaning that he’s best in an aggressive, pass-happy scheme. Wallace’s play has also declined, making it difficult to expect him to do the things he was able to do in Pittsburgh.

There’s this hope and belief that Wallace’s decline in productivity was due to the Vikings offense, but here are some numbers that make this notion look more like an overly positive myth.

For starters, Wallace caught just 54.2% of everything thrown at him. That stat doesn’t tell us much on its own, but it looks abhorrent when you compare his catch rate to the percentages of his teammates in 2015. Star rookie Stefon Diggs caught 61.9% of Bridgewater’s passes despite averaging a team-high 13.8 yards per reception, tight end Kyle Rudolph had a 67.1% catch rate in his role as a simple safety valve, and Jairus Wright had a nice-looking 68.0% catch rate with 13.0 yards per reception.

Notice that I included yards per reception averages along with the catch rate percentages, and yet I neglected to tell you Wallace’s YPR. Sadly, Wallace averaged just 12.1 yards per reception, which is even lower than his YPR average of 12.8 in Miami. In fact, it’s hard to call Wallace much of a deep threat anyway, since his YPR averages in Miami and Minnesota are far lower than his whopping 17.2 yards per reception average from the first four seasons of his career in Pittsburgh. Nowadays, he isn’t even one of the top two YPR-mongers on his own team.

Although Wallace caught a decent eight of his 19 deep passes (of at least 20 yards or more downfield, per Pro Football Reference, a different situational stat undermines him. His catch rate on third down was an unsightly 47.6%, whereas Wright, Diggs, and Rudolph were all somewhere above 60%. It’s hard to trust a player who failed to make the catch on third downs, and Wallace’s lack of reliability prevents him from being a fit for the Vikings. Since Diggs and Wright averaged more yards per reception, it’s hard for him to use playmaking as some sort of a trump card, too.

These numbers show that Wallace was less effective and less efficient than his fellow Vikings wide receivers (at least, the other two who also received significant targets in the team’s run-first offense), but they aren’t even the most important numbers associated with Wallace this offseason.

$11.5 million. Yes, that is indeed Wallace’s cap hit for the 2016 regular season, as per Spotrac, and it’s even more alarming than his $9.9 million cap hit from his first season with the Vikings. The organization didn’t get their money’s worth out of Wallace last season, and it’s hard to see that changing, especially since the former Ole Miss standout will be 30 when the season starts. Wallace, based on the data we have in front of us, is a declining player, and while he should still be a quality receiver for the next couple of seasons, he’s obviously not worth that kind of money.

Dec 20, 2015; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Mike Wallace (11) runs with the ball in the second quarter against the Chicago Bears at TCF Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports /

Unlike last season, when Wallace carried just over $3 million in dead cap, there is no dead money associated with Wallace, making him an easy cut for the Vikings this offseason.

Considering that this is the same organization that opted not to retain Greg Jennings last year, essentially making a “swap” that didn’t help either the Vikings or Dolphins in 2015, it’s hard to see Wallace back in 2016, barring something unexpected.

Zimmer’s words of praise for Wallace are kind, and they re-enforce this notion that I have: Even though Wallace played poorly this season, he can be an asset somewhere else.

The key here for the Vikings, though, is the “somewhere else”, since I don’t see how he can help them going forward. He made more negative plays than positive ones, and Diggs is a far superior player to have both in the short and long-term as Bridgewater’s playmaker in this offense.

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In short, Wallace is still a pretty good receiver who gets ripped a bit too easily, but he’s not good enough to warrant that astronomical cap hit and isn’t even the type of player the Vikings need at this point anyway. Could they get him to take a pay cut? Absolutely, since Wallace has to know that nobody else will give him anywhere near that kind of money.

However, he could put up bigger numbers elsewhere, and I think signing on with a more pass-happy team would do him better. Zimmer might like him, but both sides are better off splitting, though I do wonder how much the franchise likes Charles Johnson going forward.

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