Mike Wallace is an Undervalued Wide Receiver in 2015

When Mike Wallace was traded to the Minnesota Vikings, I didn’t see this as a negative. Apparently I am in the minority here as Wallace’s ADP sits outside the top 30 wide receivers at WR31. Most FantasyPros experts like him even less with two thirds of all experts ranking him worse than his ADP! Keep in mind that we are talking about a guy who has never once finished outside the top 30. Needless to say, I was surprised and needed to dig deeper to see if I was missing something.

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Mike Wallace is extremely fast. His 4.33 40 yard dash time puts him in the 99th percentile, tied with Brandin Cooks. Speed doesn’t always mean success (Hello Darrius Heyward-Bey!) but Wallace quickly gained a reputation as an excellent deep ball threat, averaging 18.7 yards per catch over his first three seasons. Over the past three seasons, Wallace has had less success with the deep ball, particularly with Miami where he averaged a fairly pedestrian 12.7 yards per catch.

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With Bill Lazor as offensive coordinator last year, the Dolphins did not attempt many deep passes of at least 20 yards downfield. In fact, Ryan Tannehill ranked ahead of only Alex Smith in deep ball attempt percentage according to Pro Football Focus. Even when Tannehill did target Wallace deep, they weren’t very successful. Per PFF, Mike Wallace ranked 27th with a 25% deep ball catch rate among 31 receivers with at least 20 deep targets. This was a far cry from his days with the Steelers where he was in the top ten three straight years.

As a rookie, Teddy Bridgewater flashed some promise as a deep ball passer. Bridgewater’s 46.3% accuracy on deep passes was good enough for 10th best in the league. Despite making 12 fewer deep attempts than Tannehill, Bridgewater threw five touchdowns on such passes to Tannehill’s three. That’s pretty promising for a rookie. Especially so when the Vikings most targeted deep ball receiver was a 31 year old Greg Jennings.

Wallace has been fairly pegged as an inefficient receiver throughout his career. 2013 may have been his most inefficient year when he had a 53.3% catch rate and 11 drops in his first season with Tannehill. Of 22 receivers with at least 120 targets, he was one of just two with less than 75 catches. Despite this he managed to put up 930 yards and 5 touchdowns and finished as the WR25 mostly as a result of his target volume.

In 2015, Mike Wallace was a much more efficient player. His catch percentage rose to 62.0% with just four drops while his touchdown total rose to ten. He finished the year firmly in WR2 territory as the WR18. This was despite the lack of deep ball success between Wallace and Tannehill.

Now paired with Teddy Bridgewater and offensive coordinator Norv Turner in Minnesota, it’s possible Mike Wallace keeps his 2014 catch percentage while also seeing a considerable improvement on deep ball targets. ESPN’s Field Yates included Mike Wallace in his list of players helped by scheme changes this year. Wallace himself talked about the Vikings offense being more vertical and more similar to what he was accustomed to in Pittsburgh.

Of the receivers in Minnesota, Charles Johnson is the only one that poses any threat to the number of targets Mike Wallace will see. Johnson shouldn’t be a threat for the role of deep ball receiver at least. Of the three Vikings receivers with at least 10 deep targets, Johnson was the least successful with just two receptions on 13 targets. It is worth noting that both of his catches were touchdowns but his 15.4% is well below Mike Wallace’s disappointing number in Miami last year. I don’t see Jarius Wright, Cordarrelle Patterson, Stefon Diggs or anyone else on the roster as a major threat to either starting role with the Vikings so I feel pretty good that Wallace and Johnson can coexist and both receive a healthy number of targets.

At the very least I feel confident that this is not the year Wallace finishes outside the top 30 wide receivers making him a good value in drafts. If you buy into the possibility that Wallace may regain some of his former deep ball success like I do, he suddenly becomes a really good value. I’m a fan of Teddy Bridgewater and I like his odds of building on his early deep ball success. That makes Mike Wallace a great fit in Minnesota and someone you should have your eye on for draft day.

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