Short Yardage Or The Long Ball (Mostly)

[Charlie Rivers]

Should we use Mike Wallace, mostly, for (a) short yard plays rather than use him, mostly, for (b) the long ball (since he is a burner after all)?

I do not mean exclusively, just mostly.

I like the (A) scenario - short yardage plays with solid, up-front blocking. Using him in that way we should (I think) get more production out of the guy. I know that we are already using Wallace in the short yard play...I just want to see him used in more short yardage calls and less on the deep ball (of course I am NOT saying to use him ONLY for the short yard calls: the long ball is more of a gamble IMO.

The first play on the video (below) is an example of my point...

[video=youtube;BG2hOcexC3U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG2hOcexC3U[/video]

Your view?

 

[Mudder1310]

Um...both. He has the skills to turn a 4 yard screen into a 60 yard TD. He also can turn a post pattern into 6. I'm not sure why you wouldn't do both.

 

[normaldude]

Long ball. Mike Wallace's value is that he can stretch out defenses. His high salary is not based on his production, but rather how he stretches out the defense, and opens up things for the rest of the team.

Without that long ball, we're back to the Bess & Camarillo years, when defenses would just stack 8 men in the box, and make our offense operate in a phone booth.

And it should be noted that Wallace is the ONLY WR we have with above average speed. Wallace has 4.3 speed, while all our other WRs are 4.5 guys or slower (Rishard Matthews ran a 4.62 at the combine, so his 4.46 pro day number is a bit suspect).