Heath Evans thinks EVERY one of our draft picks will fail! What!?!

Exactly. Basing what Wallace is worth to Miami on what he did/didn't do in Pittsburgh is silly.

Our offense was suffocated all year long b/c we had no speed, not to mention we have a young QB who needs playmakers in order to blossom and signing top tier FAs will always involve outbidding other teams so I have no issue with paying Wallace a million or two/yr above what he's "worth", especially when the alternative was relying on the likes of Bess, Hartline, Matthews, an unnamed rookie or a lesser FA who would most likely have gotten more than they were "worth" as well, to become the big play guy we need.

We had the cap space, we used some of it on the league's premier deep threat, we're still in good cap shape for this year and next at least, but whatever. Haters gonna hate.

 

But that isn't what Evans was arguing in the interview. What he said was that Mike Wallace is not a reliable elite wr and if he was he would never have gotten out of the Pitt organization, which is a completely different argument.

 

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/24/3413961/nfl-networks-evans-blasts-ireland.html
Looks like Barry Jackson thought Evans' comments were over the top as well.



Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/24/3413961/nfl-networks-evans-blasts-ireland.html#storylink=cpy

 

I think Barry Jackson did the right thing. He questioned some of the opinions.

He said a couple of points were irrational, most notably the 18 sacks comment. Well, it was irrational. It was hyperbole. Hyperbole is irrational almost by definition. Heath Evans is on the hook for that bit of misguided hyperbole where he said 18 sacks and really should've probably said 12 to make his point more effective.

It's also worthwhile pointing out that the Steelers did make a significant offer to Wallace, so they obviously didn't HATE him, they just didn't value him as much as Miami even though they had the most information on him and even though he already knew their system and had chemistry with Big Ben.

Those were really the only two things Jackson argued with and they were natural rebuttal points to make.

 

Actually, I don't think Jackson was very strong either way (agreeing or disagreeing with Evans). He more or less reiterated what Evans said and made really just the one remark about how picking the number 18 for sacks was over the top....well, duuuuhhh....

Evans is a BB shill and needs a muzzle so that he can think a bit before he goes off half azzed... Not every thing he said was completely wrong or off the wall, but he spent more of his time dwelling on every negative aspect of every point and no time on the positives each of these guys could bring to the team.. He's just as wrong for assuming the worst on every move we made as we would be in assuming every point he made was wrong...

Any way you look at it, we'll know more when we play some games...however, if Jordan has 12 sacks (using a less hyperbolic term) and Wallace has 1100 yds and 8 TDs (even if he can't run any route but go's and 9's) this team WILL be better than previous years...

EDIT:

Ok, so I missed this comment too, I just expected a bit more from Jackson than what he actually said...

 

Isn't that what we've been doing?

I get it that he was using hyperbole to make a point, but if you strip away the hyperbole what are you left with? The only other thing he offered was Jordan's height and weight and he chants that as if by default that would disqualify him as being a good player in every other facet of the game. Is that the informed research you are alluding to?

So why does that make it a bad move by the Dolphins as Evans alludes to?

 

Some people have. Most people in this thread have been going quite a few steps further.

If you strip away the hyperbole you're left with Mark Anderson, who had 12 sacks as a rookie but was still a liability and never destined to be more than a part time player, a guy who has been passed around the league like a joint and will soon be on his 5th team because he's overpaid in Buffalo. I think guys like Gaines Adams, Jabaal Sheard, Derrick Burgess and even our own Derrick Rodgers if you recall, made a splash with some sacks as a rookie. And Heath clearly doesn't even believe Jordan will do that, he's just saying that even IF he does make a splash with some sacks, he's not necessarily a good football player if he's a liability on those other plays.

He cited the weight but I think it's foolish to think he's basing his belief that Jordan is a liability against the run because of his weight. By the way, Jordan played at 228 pounds. So Evans gave his weight even more credit than it deserved.

Oh yes, let's completely rehash an argument that has already taken place in this thread over a series about 200+ posts, as if we're breaching new subject matter. Joy.

 

He's just saying what any rational person knows. How anyone can honestly read or listen to what Evans said and think it's credible or intelligent is scary to me.

 

In this one post you provide more support for Evans stance on Jordan than he does in the entire interview. I guess you and Stinger are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he had additional data to support his conclusions. Sorry I'm not going to be so generous because he doesn't say anything that leads me to believe that.

You were the one to bring it up again, not me.

 

The only uninformed, superficial opinion he espoused was where he mostly focused on Dion Jordan's weight being 243 lbs. Am I assuming that he thinks Jordan is a liability based on things other than his weight listing? Yes. But not without evidence. In order appearances on television (which so many in here have been so quick to cite in their attempts to prove that Evans is biased) he has gone on about Jordan not being a prospect for reasons that clearly don't have anything to do with weight listing, reasons that clearly allude to his having watched Dion Jordan on tape. So I'm not exactly making a leap of faith to say that he's actually watched Jordan on tape and that is the primary reason he thinks he is a liability against the run.

As for my bringing up examples like Mark Anderson and all those other guys...he didn't do that. Did he need to? The point stood and it wasn't challenged. Had someone said "It's ridiculous to think that a guy would rack up a bunch of sacks but still not be a great player" to him, THEN it would have been appropriate to respond with examples such as Derrick Burgess, Lance Johnstone, Lorenzo Brommell and Mark Anderson.

Incorrect. What I brought up was that Barry Jackson was right to point out that the Steelers made Wallace an offer, albeit a significantly lower offer than what the Dolphins made.

 

This is all about which team did it as far as I'm concerned.

If, somehow, the great Bill Belichick would have traded into the top 5 and picked Jordan, Evans would have his nose shoved so far up Bill's *** lavishing him in praise that he'd not see the light of day for a year.

 

60 mill over 50 mill, how else do you think your gonna get the player..

The fact that they made the offer to Wallace last year tells me the steelers were fine with everything that Evans said they weren't fine with..

Why would the steelers offer 50 mill to a receiver they were worried about in crunch time, worried about that they had to still teach him how to run routes, steelers must be stupid to do that no?

Bottom line, the contract offer to Wallace by his original team destroys any credibility to those personally opinions by the scorned player.

I guess Barry Jackson writing an article that agrees with us on this topic isn't enough proof that this guy is full of sh&$.

 

You betch ur ***..

 

The problem is that the fact that the Stillers made a very generous offer for the guy in itself disputes his factoid below:

Why would one of the more sound and prosperous teams, and a team that's been doing it right for a long time suddenly offer this kid that kind of money if they in fact felt the way Evans says they felt.

What we (and Evans) don't know is who else was involved. There were reports of the Vikes and Pitts still involved during the 3 day "no-fly" recruitment period...

I don't see that offer as 'significantly' higher than our offer give it's a year later and on the open market, unlike the stillers original offer.

 

Greg Cote added to the list, but didn't really say much about what Evans actually had to say....

 

Why wouldn't they offer $60 million like Miami did? They clearly had the money.

 

In what way does that dispute the factoid in question? It doesn't. It's pretty easy to see how the Steelers could think that Wallace might be worth a 5 year, $50 million deal that is backloaded, but not worth a 5 year, $60 million deal that is evenly loaded, mainly because they don't like how Wallace performs in the clutch. There's no contradiction there.

 

I may be misunderstanding the point, but why does it seem that some people think a player should have the same value/worth to all organizations? Given our respective WR corps (Fins versus Steelers) it just seems obvious that Wallace would be more valuable to us, therefore the higher contract offer.

That said, I think we overpaid, but I'm happy we addressed the need.

 

It's somewhat irrelevant, but the answer to your question is they already had a big play WR in Antonio Brown, who was willing to take much less than 60 million. The Dolphins had Hartline, Bess and a soup sandwich.

Same as what happened with Jake Long and Kendall Langford going to the Rams. Good players for us, but because we had cheaper options available in Odrick and Martin, they didn't have the same value to us as they did to the Rams. Supply and demand I believe it's called, and it doesn't require anonymous sources or Belechik *** kissers posing as NFL analysts to figure out.

 

WADR, every point of Evans' you've defended is based on you interpreting what he said/thinking he has other info/assuming me misspoke, and there's been no defense of the things he's said as he spoke them.

That tells me his points were so bizarre, one has to go out of their way to defend them.

 

These "cheaper options" were drafted because...

 

and his opinion on his abilities is clearly not in alignment with most people that have watched him play or watched his tapes. in fact what I have read and heard from most is that he will have to rely on his coverage ability more as he develops as a pass rusher. as Evans clearly stated that DJ WAS GOING TO BE a liability I would say that he was so full of himself and just blowing smoke. to say that nothing a team has done in the off season is going to have any success with so much certainty smacks of a clear bias to me and no matter how you want to polish it it still is a turd to me. I have seen/heard 3 of his interviews now since the draft where he has just totally ripped the Dolphins and in particular JI with clear disdain and completely disregarded anything the team has done. he has spoken in circles always melting down to an outright bashing of the team. I'm done. I'm not an idiot and you can stop trying to convince me and anyone else that has seen what I have seen and heard what I have heard that we are wrong in our assessment of what his message is.

 

I'll let you answer that one. I get the feeling you're doing that thing where you say something totally obvious, but in a way that makes it sound incredibly clever .

 

The obvious answer is they drafted replacements because those guys were hitting FA, and would subsequently be overpaid.

 

lol ok CK that's enough. why the hell if he isn't clutch would you even offer him 50 mill? I wouldn't call a year later and 10 mill more in an open market a huge difference but that is just me I guess. splitting hairs isn't my bag baby...

 

so... the team....that did the drafting has a lesser need for the FA and there fore willing to pay less than a team that HAS a need for the FA? and of course that means that the team without the need sets the value of the FA because THEY don't NEED them regardless of FA's talent obviously...

 

No, the team doesn't want to pay players on the FA market because its an inherently inefficient market. The team drafted Martin because they knew Jake Long would be overpaid.

 

Certainly possible. Though more likely for Long than for Langford or Wallace IMO. The overall point remains the same, players have different values to different teams so the fact that Pitt wasn't willing to pay 60 million for Wallace means he wasn't worth that much to them. It has no direct effect on what he's worth to another team with different needs, priorities and resources available.

 

Why is that a problem?

By the way he was ripping Dion Jordan before the draft I believe so it doesn't really have to do with the Dolphins, I don't think. He didn't suddenly decide he doesn't like Dion Jordan because the Dolphins took him.

 

Shouldn't he be worth MORE to the Steelers than to the Dolphins? After all, they know him. Their coaches know him. Their players know him and he knows them. Their quarterback already has four years of chemistry with him. Their head coach has four years of feel for when in the game he can count on the guy, and what roles he's good at, what roles maybe he's not as good at. He knows the offense.

None of that is true with the Dolphins. He's going to have to learn Ryan Tannehill, learn the other players on the offense, learn the playbook, learn the tendencies of the system, the tendencies of Mike Sherman, learn the way his receivers coach expects him to practice and play, and all the staff, players and quarterback around him are going to have to learn him as well.

So why wouldn't he be MORE valuable to the Steelers than to the Dolphins? And isn't this essentially why through decades of free agency, most often the good players don't actually make it to market?

 

Steelers offering $50 million all but proves they didn't think poorly of Wallace as Evans said. There is no way a team thinks a guy is bad in the clutch, takes plays off, can't run anything but a few routes and is an overall low floor player is going to offer the guy $50 million. Ok, that's not true, there's plenty of teams that would do something like that....but Evans makes a point to say the Steelers aren't stupid. What we have is Evans painting himself into the corner. Either he lied and the Steelers are stupid or he lied and they don't think poorly of Wallace...it has to be one or the other.

Also, if we had paid $51 million for Wallace, what would Evans say?

 

That's pure conjecture on your part. And again, "overpaid" is a subjective term b/c there's no Dow Jones listing of players' prices that teams can over or under pay on.

Martin may indeed have been drafted to take over for Long, or maybe he was drafted to take over at LT while Long moved to the right, or for leverage in negotiations with Long, all of the above or none of the above. No one knows, no one here at least. In hindsight it appears Martin was drafted as a replacement but a few short weeks ago the league was buzzing about a Branden Albert trade and the whole world thought Ireland had traded up to take Lane Johnson at 3. Oops.

 

The reason we have Wallace and the Steelers don't, is because we were in cap heaven and they were going to have to cut loose some very good players to Not be in cap hell if they signed him.

Obviously they wanted to retain him.

 

I think the Miami Dolphins overpaid for Wallace.

I think the statement

Has nothing to do about whether or not he is over paid.

Plus if you talk to the Steelers, they were willing to offer him a pretty high contract. So they must not think all those bad things about him.

 

Based on what he did in Pitt, sure he's overpaid. But he's not being asked to do what he did in Pitt. He's here to transport the offense out of the stonehenge. If he can run by safeties, expand zones, create space for Keller/the other WRs and keep safeties out of the box in the run game then he'll be worth every penny.

And I agree, Evans went way past saying MW wasn't worth what he was paid in Miami. He's basically saying he's lazy, not dedicated to getting better, can't be counted on, etc. And if that were true he wouldn't even worth the 50 million Pitt offered him. IMO Evans is a Patriots apologist who's on TV rooting for them instead of doing his job. Willie McGinest is more of a Patriot than Evans will ever be yet he gave Ireland an A for his offseason moves and said the Phins were creeping closer and closer to overtaking the Pats. Come September we'll find out.

 

I think we need to define "overpaid".

Does it mean, paid more than the player is worth to the new team or pay more than the player is worth to his old team?

If the argument is that there is no difference, then explain a "hometown discount". Also, if that is the case that means the only the FAs that aren't overpaid are the ones that take less or the same money to get away from their former team.