In case you live in a cave, a chasm, or Cleveland, you already heard that Mike Wallace signed with the Miami Dolphins this afternoon. Here's my take on the winners and losers of the deal, strictly from a fantasy football perspective:
WINNERS
- Antonio Brown. If he wasn't already, Brown is now certainly the apple of Big Ben's eye. Brown might be a legit WR1 in fantasy football in 2013.
- Ryan Tannehill. He's got a legit #1, go-to target in the passing game now. I actually like Tanny as a sleeper in 2013.
- Dolphins running backs. Be it Daniel Thomas or Lamar Miller or whomever ends up toting the rock for the Fins will have a lot more room to run now, with a bonafide deep threat scorching the sidelines. Dolphinitely.
- Brian Hartline. He wasn't a #1, but was forced into the role in 2012. While he had some explosively big games en route to a solid 1000-yard season, he only scored one touchdown, and was too inconsistent from week to week to be relied upon in fantasy. With Wallace in town, Hartline might see a dip in production to around 800 yards, but I bet his TD total climbs to around the 6-7-8 area. Overall, that's a boon to Hartline's value.
- Greg Jennings. He's now the top wide receiver available in free agency.
LOSERS
- Mike Wallace. Sorry bruh, but the Dolphins offense is not as good as the Steelers offense, and Tannehill - as talented as he is - is no Ben Roethlisberger. Wallace's numbers might climb with more targets in Miami, but I think his ceiling for production is significantly lower. Strong WR2, at best.
- Ben Roethlisberger. Call me a hater, but I think Antonio Brown is a fairly uninspiring go-to wideout. Ben is running low on gamebreaking targets. You can't keep hemorrhaging guys like Santonio Holmes and now Mike Wallace without seeing a dip in production at some point. I see Ben as a QB2 now. I never would have drafted him s my starter, anyway. But now? Nobody should.
- Davone Bess. I like Bess as a slot receiver in real-life football, but in fantasy he's just not productive enough to matter. With Wallace around, Bess will see his targets drop from ~100 to ~60 (or less). A 40% drop in targets means a 40% drop in production, which means a near-worthless player becomes completely worthless.
- The Steelers. It delights me to no end to watch this team erode.
- The Dolphins. I think they overpaid for this player. Five years for $65 mil, with $30 mil guaranteed. That's $13 mil a season for a guy that many (including the Steelers organization) see as too one-dimensional and too much of a bad seed to command that kind of money. That's a lot of cap space tied up in one player. To me, their thee-year move from Brandon Marshall to Mike Wallace is a net loss. I don't think it poisons the team or anything like that, but I do think it imposes a cap on their potential as an offense.
Miami is the new Washington. Can't say this makes the very small amount I like Wallace increase in any way.
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