March 12, 2013

Mike Wallace to Miami -- Winners & Losers



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.

1 comment:

  1. 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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