There are receivers around the NFL with reputations for not having the best hands.
Steelers wide receiver Mike Wallace isn’t one of them. He dropped a small number of passes in his first three seasons, helping him earn the trust of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the coaches in the process. It’s reasonable to wonder if that trust took a hit on Sunday night when Wallace dropped four passes against the Bengals.
The answer, from Roethlisberger, is that the confidence remains high in a player he targeted 15 times during the game.
“I don’t shy away from them even with drops,” Roethlisberger said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com. “I will always have confidence in them no matter what. These guys all hold themselves to a really high standard, and it just shows how valuable these guys are to our attack.:
Wallace is on pace for the most receptions of his NFL career, although he’s also on pace for the lowest yards per catch. Both things are also true of Antonio Brown, which would seem to support Roethlisberger’s belief that the offense run by offensive coordinator Todd Haley is longer on dinking and dunking than it is on the big plays that were formerly a staple of the Pittsburgh attack.
Should things continue this way, it will be interesting to see what impact it has on Wallace’s quest for a new long-term contract in Pittsburgh or somewhere else. We’d say the same about the drops except that we’re pretty sure that it won’t be a positive outcome for the wideout.