Tannenbaum says Dolphins will make responsible decision on Wallace

Generally people need to better recognize two points of emphasis with respect to the salary cap and what cutting a guy or trading a guy does to it any given year:

1. Every dollar of cash paid to a player is a dollar that MUST be accounted for on the salary cap. The only question is when.
2. General Managers have absolutely no shortage of tricks they can use to shift present salary expense forward or future salary expense backward.

The natural extension of these principles is that the primary factor in deciding whether to keep or cut a player is how much CASH ON THE BARREL HEAD that player is owed for his service this upcoming year. If Mike Wallace is owed $9.9 million cash on the barrel head in 2015, that is how much would be saved by cutting him. There is no difference between "what Steve Ross pays" and "what counts on the cap". Over the long term they are THE SAME THING.

So does it matter that cutting Mike Wallace results in acceleration of money already paid to him, to where the immediate cap savings would only be $2.5 million? Ultimately, no. This is because the Dolphins have no shortage of accounting options they can execute to shift future cap space into the present. They can shift $7.4 million of future cap space into 2015 and suddenly you have $9.9 million of cap space. Voila.

And I know what you're thinking. CK, isn't that irresponsible? No. It's not. You saved $9.9 million by cutting Mike Wallace. It does not matter whether all of that $9.9 million is reflected in 2015 or whether only $2.5 million is reflected in 2015 and the remaining $7.4 million is reflected in 2016 and beyond. There is no difference. You're not "borrowing" against the future. You're taking money owed to you in the future and transferring it to the present, at zero loss of interest.

The only thing you can do that is truly irresponsible is to start shelling out more cash money to players any given year than the salary cap for that year. In other words if you doled out $150 million knowing that the cap this year is only $125 million, and you're just using accounting tricks to make it look like $125 million, THAT is what is referred to as "borrowing" from the future salary cap, and it is what eventually results in the infamous "cap hell" we hear about so often.

So forgive me if every time the subject of Mike Wallace is brought up, I sound like a broken record and keep putting it thus that it's a matter of whether you believe he is worth $9.9 million or not. I bring that up because that's what matters.

 

It sounds like you've been watching a few too many Amazon commercials.

You don't have to get all butt-hurt, so relax, don't do it...or in our case maybe do so you can clear your head. If you had read my first line you'd see my post wasn't an anti-Wallace rant. I don't particularly like Mike Wallace as a player but I respect him as a talent. Is he more valuable than Brian Hartline? Of course he is and his pay reflects it. Don't waste your time trying to talk to me about Mike Wallace. I like the guy for what he is and I've said my piece on Mike Wallace--you can go back and read that if you wish. If he's here next year, fine. I see he has value.

I'm simply pointing out that when the overall production didn't change, the fact that the offense became less multi-dimensional and more concentrated shouldn't be cause for celebration. What's the difference? I would say the difference is nothing.

The problem is that people who didn't like Mike Wallace last year are now guilty of flip-flopping. They think too highly of him now that he's had this amazing 10 TD year. It's just a failure in terms of not seeing the bigger picture.


But here's the point you seem not to grasp and which you should spend some time thinking about. Last year at this time people weren't talking about how valuable Mike Wallace was because he had 900 yards and 5 TDs. We looked on the other side and said, 'even Brian Hartline has 1000+ yards and 4 TDs.'

So last year, the production was basically equal and both had solid years. People therefore liked Brian Hartline as a #2 and they thought Wallace had underachieved as a #1. For the record, I'm not so sure anyone over- or underachieved. I think we were just an average offense. After all, the net production basically stayed the same this year which would lead one to think that those numbers are more or less what our offense is capable of.


This year people have 10 TDs to fall back on and thus they're going to say Mike Wallace got better. Well, the only problem with saying that is that it's not the right explanation. He had more or less the same conversion rate as last year (56% versus 51%). A slight improvement. But he put up basically 100 yards less over the course of the season. The TD numbers went up but that's only because all the others went down!

We didn't gain anything by having Wallace be the one that scored! It doesn't matter who gets the scores if the total number of them doesn't change! But when you look at the system as a whole you realize that with more players, the current OC got the same production as last year. And I'm supposed to be impressed because it was more reliant on mostly 2 guys?

The problem here is that when your QB is throwing for 4000 yards and 25 TDs and you funnel the majority of that production through your primary outside WR and your slot WR, you don't have much to give to the #2 outside WR or the TE. Unless we increase the overall production, it's not going to matter at all who's playing next to Wallace and Landry. That's the conclusion we need to make here.

Now, you can tell me that Hartline is limiting this offense but that's not defensible. The numbers only support that he played a lesser role in the offense, not that he wasn't getting open or that he wasn't doing his job. So for all those people that want to keep Mike Wallace and compliment him with something else...let me ask you a simple question. Where's the production going to come from? Is Tannehill going to be a 5000 yard passer? Is he going to throw for 35 or 40 TDs? The #2 WR in this offense doesn't get a lot of attention. Hartline had a better conversion rate and basically the same YPC as compared to Mike Wallace this year. What was the difference? It was in the vastly lopsided targets data.


So, you can sit there and get all upset at the thought of having to defend Mike Wallace as an integral part of Bill Lazor's offense but the truth is that Lazor just doesn't seem to be able to get anything out of anyone other than Wallace or Landry (or whoever else is playing their specific roles). The production isn't better, it's just more concentrated--more reliant on 1 outside guy and 1 inside guy.

You're going to tell me that Brian Hartline is washed up.

No.

He had less targets.

Do the math.

 

I don't follow contracts much but does this apply if money is guaranteed in future years? I'm assuming no right? The conversation you are having above is because his guaranteed years are behind us correct?

 

???

http://espn.go.com/blog/miami-dolph...on-dolphins-tenure-we-were-a-quarterback-away

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/20...826-1_1_philbin-vontae-davis-brandon-marshall

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/20...12_1_joe-philbin-brandon-marshall-davone-bess

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/spor...cceptable-brandon-marshall-has-a-message.html

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000...nder-pressure-jake-long-must-prove-he-fits-in

If things are misconceptions on my part, it's based on what was reported and printed, not my own conjecture. I try to always cite sources or provide links.

YMMV.

 

Just food for thought. I am not a huge fan on his attitude sometimes and lack of effort with one hand attempts when he could have easily caught with two (one example in endzone during GB game). But, we brought him here as a deep threat and to score TD's. We haven't connected on deep ball I get it but defenses have to respect the speed. This allowed Tanny to throw over 4000 yards. MW still matched his highest TD total for career (I know it wasnt the OOOH aaah factor long ball)
and was like 300 yards shy of top number...but still matched TD high and third best of career in yards. Why let him go? He is still an asset which opens up the underneath and middle if long ball isn't working. His contract sucks but he is here and I can't see replacing him based on the aforementioned reasons ...which is why he was brought here to begin with.

 

If I have this correctly, Chris, you're saying we save 9.9M the next 2 years by cutting Wallace. So would the pertinent question be: Can we find a player who will do more for the team for 4.45M per year the next 2 years than Wallace, especially another receiver since that will become the team's #1 priority if he's cut/traded? Personally, I'm not confident we can.

 

It doesn't matter what year you want to call it because you can get around it logistically. Look no further than Wallace's contract where he made 3 million his first year and then 17 million the next year.

 

You don't think that if we pick a Kevin White in the first round he wouldn't be at least somewhat productive in his first two seasons with us? I don't know, with the way receivers coming out of college they seem to be rather productive right away... and the rest of the money saved could go towards improvement in another area, like the OL, which would, in turn, make the whole offense better.

 

What I'm saying is we save $9.9 million in ONE year by cutting Wallace. That savings might be recognized over the course of one year, two years or maybe even three years. That's up to the finance wing of the Dolphins, who have no shortage of options for manipulating the cap any way they please. But the bottom line is if you keep Wallace you pay him $9.9 million for his services in 2015, and if you cut Wallace you save $9.9 million but you go without his services in 2015.

If you start pulling it out to two years and such then you also have to think about the $11.5 million he's owed in 2016. And the $11.5 million he's owed in 2017. So on that basis we're talking more like $33 million saved over 3 years. But since those $11.5 million salaries could have been saved by cutting him AFTER 2015, then really it's only pertinent to discuss what you'd save by cutting him prior to 2015...which is to say, $9.9 million.

People just never seem to believe me. I say fifteen hundred times that the question is whether Wallace is worth $9.9 million for one year of service and they always gotta tinker with it. But that's what it is. You have a choice. You can have Wallace for 2015 but you have to pay him $9.9 million. Do you do it? Or do you not?

 

I'm not positive what you're asking about.

But I will say that guaranteed salaries in future years do complicate the question. Wallace doesn't have anymore of those. About $3.0 million of his $9.9 million salary in 2015 is guaranteed, however you have to keep in mind Miami has been inserting offset language in their contracts for many years (thank you, Dawn Aponte) and what that means is if Wallace makes $3.0 million or more in 2015 from whatever team he goes to after we cut him (which I'd say is nearly 100% assured) then Miami won't owe him a dime of that $3.0 million.

 

After reading all this thread, I can only say, I hope we keep Wallace. The responsible decision TBaum speaks of would be not weakening the offense needlessly.

 

At some point it becomes obvious that Cautious Joe, is not much of a coach of Vets.

Marshall, potentially Wallace, seems good ol' Joe has something of a problem

 

He is the perfect combination of someone who is not good with Vets, and uncomfortable with rookies.

 

There is not a single thing in that article that confirms did the trading. That is James Walker saying it.

This article is the definition of conjecture. Hyde is making assumptions. But you talk about Hard Knocks, fine, watch it again and see who did what with the Davis trade. Indy called Ireland, ireland approached Philbin. Saying Philbin wanted troubled players gone implies that he ordered Ireland to get rid of Vonate. He didn't based on any and all FACTS we have.

That is not confirmation that Philbin ordered Marshall to be traded. Pay attention to his press conferences, he always refers to moves and issues and "we" or "the Miami Dolphins", even if things happened in the past. Also, there's still this unfounded implication that Philbin ordered Marshall off the team. Why couldn't have been Ireland? Or Ross? Or a group decision?

Again, why not a group decision?

Once again, speculation. There's not a single fact in that article about who decided Long should go. I mean, am I the only one that remembers Long mulling over our and Rams' offers for weeks? Seems weird we'd make him a competitive offer to think about it for so long over, if we wanted him gone, no?

What's reported and printed is mostly speculation or conjecture. A person reads Armando, Omar, Hyde, etc. and think those guys are actual reporters, they aren't. They are opinion makers not reporters. Barry Jackson is a reporter, those guys aren't. Then after reading that stuff, a person comes on here and hears narrative literally invented out of thin air, it then gets argued and as all arguments on the web go, it eventually morphs into other arguments. By this time things get mixed together and boom, perception becomes reality.

A perfect example, is Philbin doesn't like #1 WRs nor does his offense need #1 WR talent.

Neither of those were the original arguments. The original argument was that from game to game, depending on the defense they were up against, a different WR with a different skill set could be the QB's main target. That was an important distinction to make at the time, because with Marshall, the plan was always make Marshall the #1 target regardless of who we are playing. Then it was argued that concept is stupid, because you need #1 talent at the skill positions. The counter was that GB's offense was full of 2nd rounders and on and on, until we get posters a couple of times a year complain about how people were stupid because they said Philbin hates #1 WRs.

This situation is no different. Conjecture becomes fact, perception becomes reality.

 

So let's cut him and sign Suh. No brainer.

The Raiders are the obvious choice for a trade partner. They are the most receiver needy team in the NFL. Jaguars aren't far behind.

The Raiders are going to have nearly 60 mil in cap room this off season. Heck we should send them all of our over priced players. We could send them Pouncey,Starks, and Finnegan as well. There the Raiders just filled their top four off season needs. WR,CB,DL,OL.

 

Only comfy w/rook draftees

Granted ol Joe cannot block anyone, nor can he make THill more efficient down the field, still and all there is a pattern.

Ol Joe is the anti Sparano, which is fine, to bad he is a horses ***

 

hahahaha. You kill me man. I haven't seen someone this obsessed with mediocrity since Selma Hayek settled for Francois-Henri Pinault.

Yeah- "less targets", Busey, not LESS SNAPS. Hartline wasn't removed from the field. He saw the same number of snaps and ran roughly the same number of routes as Wallace [and 130 MORE snaps than Landry]... so geeee, why DID he receive less targets? Must've been a conspiracy, eh? Ryan Tannehill, amidst his admirable 93 Rating, 4k yards, 27 TDs, and 66% completions, intentionally chose to hinder the offense and jeopardize his stats by ignoring a routinely wide-open Hartline in order to complete passes elsewhere to targets who, according to you, must've been less open than Hartline. LOL. He was targeted less b/c he's not the superhero you imagined him to be.... unless you pictured Superman permanently holding a piece of Kryptonite.

Here's the breakdown of Miami's receiving production per snap:
[TABLE="class: grid, width: 450"]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]yards per snap[/TD]
[TD]TD% per snap[/TD]
[TD]Drop %[/TD]
[TD]snaps[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Wallace[/TD]
[TD]1.05[/TD]
[TD]1.22%[/TD]
[TD]3.5%[/TD]
[TD]819[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Landry[/TD]
[TD]1.11[/TD]
[TD]0.73%[/TD]
[TD]1.8%[/TD]
[TD]683[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Clay[/TD]
[TD]0.81[/TD]
[TD]0.40%[/TD]
[TD]3.6%[/TD]
[TD]745[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Matthews[/TD]
[TD]0.64[/TD]
[TD]0.95%[/TD]
[TD]9.1%[/TD]
[TD]210[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sims[/TD]
[TD]0.56[/TD]
[TD]0.39%[/TD]
[TD]2.8%[/TD]
[TD]507[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Hartline[/TD]
[TD]0.58[/TD]
[TD]0.25%[/TD]
[TD]6.4%[/TD]
[TD]813[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Gibson[/TD]
[TD]0.59[/TD]
[TD]0.20%[/TD]
[TD]5.9%[/TD]
[TD]503[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Hey lookie there, Say it with me, Busey, "Hartline done got himself the hat trick of 2nd worsts. Championship!!"

The bum had every opportunity to establish himself as the starting Z receiver of the future and preserve his silly inflated contract, but he COULDN'T. Tannehill goes through progressions, and Lazor dials up the plays based on what he sees or has seen on the field and in the film room, so OBVIOUSLY Hartline is not doing a good enough job.There's a reason the passing offense scored just 13 TDs in 2012 with Hartline as the starting X receiver dude. It's the same reason why his targets are dwindling faster than Charlie Sheen's bank account on hooker night. Pull your head out of the sand and face reality.

Say hi to Shouright for me BTW. There's no way you two aren't friends.

 

More proof that Gibson is worthless. Cut this guy already!

 

I'm saying, let's pretend this is last offseason and we're having this convo. He's owed $10m or whatever next year even if he's cut. It wouldn't be so easy to hide that money right? Essentially confirming it was a 2 year deal with options afterwards.

So with this offset language you're talking about, that affects cap numbers as well? I didn't know about this $1 for $1 rule with the cap. I thought there were situations where you would take a cap hit even if you actually didn't pay the money out.

 

The team that trades for him takes on no guaranteed money. Teams can easily absorb that contract or do a simple restructuring by converting some of it into guaranteed.

I'd rather we keep Wallace one more year if the situation is tenable. His dead money drops to around $2.5 million (and unlike others opinions...the cap DOES count). Replace Hartline first and see if we replace him with someone solid before we ditch both our WR's and end up like the Bess days where Landry is the only guy doing anything. Folks who follow the Dolphins at all should know 10TD's is NOT remotely easy to replace from your WR.

 

Why all the flack on Wallace...dude jus bust his a$$ all year like no other an had 10TD's that would have been 20 if Opie Taylor could throw better deep, or like we saw against New England. .THROW allot more of them and he will complete them..he was just upset because he was not getting his named called against our hate rival the jets..I was impatiently wondering myselfnans wait his turnm we are almost there offensively. M please do not allow this schmuck from the jets to get rid of him!!!!

 

Fans of this organization hate productive Wrs...see Brandon Marshall.

 

The two likely designations of the the post June cuts are Ellerbe and Hartline. Dumping these two wastes will save nearly 15M in cap savings. After a few other guys are shown the door?? We are in decent shape cap wise....maybe not players for Suh, but enough to get some depth along the Off and Def lines.

 

Yes, I know Fin...well we lose out on Rex Ryan to the frigging Buffalo Bills! Nn

 

Darn it.

 

There ya go STONEY faced, DROOPY Eared, ROSS !!!! WAY TO GO STEPHEN.......Way to be on top of everything.

 

No, but we hate drama queen primadonas who can't catch a ball that hits them in their hands. And costs $60 million.

We do hate them.

 

Doubtful Wallace gets traded unless Philbin/Hickey they already an equally talented WR ready to take his place.

I"d send the very hard working but limited Hartline to Cleveland for Josh Gordon. Hes talented enough easily replace Hartline's production and really put the pressure on Wallace not to take plays off and fight for every ball.

 

I was one of the only guys on this site pulling for Marshall over Jackson. Made sense for the offense that was here at the time.

Unfortunately, for Marshall, he kind of created his own crap-storm once he was here.

 

...and he created another one in Chicago this year.

 

I really liked his game, but yeah, all of the other stuff doesn't really put him in a good light....

 

That may be the cool popular thing to say to some friends at home, but this is a site with informed Miami Dolphin poster's....comments like that only make you look worse.

 

Informed??????

BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Ahem, ok, excuse me. Sorry. OK, look, we know you have a man-crush on Wallace, as evidenced by your avatar, cute. Anyhow, the fact remains he is not that good. Sorry. He rarely goes up and fights for a ball, or makes any kind of consistent effort. He routinely runs sloppy, lazy routes, many times getting too close to the sideline so there is no room to even catch a pass. Sorry, I deal in facts and logic. I know that confuses most, but that's life.

Back to you, let the personal attacks begin. Call me a troll, or uninformed, even though I played football well before you were born. Keep it up.

It won't change the truth, that I know more about football than you and your hating pals.

Bring it on.

Oh, and GO BUCKS!!!!

 

Even without the deep ball Wallace still managed nearly 900 yards and got 10 TDs with a bad play calling system. So yeah the one trick pony argument needs to go. If he went to Baltimore with Joe Flacco I can't imagine how good he would do or even a team with a decent deep ball ability and better coaching staff.

 

So by going to Baltimore he would learn to run precise routes and catch with his hands??

Doubt it.

There is a reason Pittsburgh didn't care that he left.

 

Brilliant rebuttal.

Figures.