Mike Wallace: What’s Your Advice For Steelers Receiver?
Steelers cornerback, and good friend of Mike Wallace, Ike Taylor spent Memorial Day weekend with his speedster buddy in the place that makes the most sense – Las Vegas. Ok, so it makes close to no sense to spend a weekend iconic for the ‘beginning of summer’ with grilling, picnics, and pool openings in a desert city known for bright lights, hookers, and wedding chapels. It does make plenty of sense, however, that Mike Wallace is there as a continuation of the gambling spree he’s been on for the past four months.
Four months. That’s how long Wallace’s contract ‘negotiations’ have been in the works with the Steelers. As a restricted free agent, his options are… well… restricted. And, it’s something that Wallace can’t really seem to get a full grasp of as day after day, week after week, and month after month have gone by with no fresh ink on the dotted line from the Steelers or any other team. His own misconceptions about himself are borderline mental – you are not the face of the Steelers franchise (nor will you ever be) and you have yet to put up the head turning numbers in enough seasons to ask for a team to make you their golden boy. So how much then do you think you are worth?
For Mike Wallace, sometimes ya gotta roll the hard six. In case you are wondering, rolling a hard six is about a 3% chance in Craps. Those are better odds than Wallace has at getting his big pay day with the Steelers this season. But he just doesn’t understand the Steelers organization if he thinks he’s the one to break down over 75 years of tradition on how to run an organization. If he doesn’t soon realize that, his career could implode faster than the Stardust that once glittered on The Strip.
Wallace says he’s upset and frustrated according to Taylor. Well, so is the rest of the Steelers and Steeler Nation, dude.
My advice to our little Sky Masterson – sign the tender. Show your loyalty to the team first (it worked for Hines Ward who is not the same athlete as you are). Show you can prove your worth on the field for the next season or two so that you can get those big dollar signs. You are going into a new offense with the rest of the team. If you don’t fit – there’s no sense in keeping you. Show that not only you can fit, but you can be a key player in how this offense produces. If you really want the dough (with or without the Steelers), you’ve got to show you can do it all as a receiver. THEN you’ll get your money. Then, we can all say you deserve it too.
Ike Taylor told Wallace, while they were seeing the Blue Man Group (at least I’d like to think that’s what they were in Vegas for), “[I told him], at the end of the day: Football doesn’t need you; you need football.” Bingo. Ike’s a smart guy. He knows that at the end of the day a team will look for a better priced guy who can still contribute to the team. The market is too saturated for a guy like Wallace to get his big pay day… yet.
If you had advice for Mike Wallace, what would it be. Let us know. I’d love to hear that I’m not ‘the crazy one’ as I’m often referred to in my own family.
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