Yesterday Adam Schefter and the rest of ESPN stumbled upon a bit of potential news that is indeed very shocking. Steelers game-changing WR Mike Wallace, a fan favorite and a hell of a deep threat, is a restricted free agent this season. While teams with restricted free agents of this high caliber can usually re-sign the players before they hit the market, the situation might be a little bit different for the Steelers right now. They are currently 11 million over the cap and will have to do a lot of creative moves relatively soon to sign him before other teams start to lure him away.
The idea behind this whole shocking revelation is that while the Steelers are already struggling to get under the cap, there are teams out there who do not have to worry as much. The new CBA enforced a rule that there are no more first or third round tenders for free agents. In the past, a team could put in a bid at a certain level and the currently owning team could match that offer or let the player go for the allotted draft pick. Now, to get Mike Wallace, a team would have to give up a first round pick. However, the way they could do it would make it so that the Steelers could not possibly attempt to match the offer because of their cap issues. Instead of putting a signing bonus in the contract that the Steelers would have to match to keep Wallace, the opposing team could sign Mike Wallace to a contract with a large roster bonus, where the cap hit is all in one year. This would mean the Steelers would either have to let him go (and therefore receive someone's first round pick in the draft this year) or cut a LOT of players to both get under the cap and get far enough under to match that roster bonus cap hit.
This leaves one team extremely open to taking Wallace from the Steelers: the division rival Bengals. They have two first rounders this year thanks to their crafty trade of Carson Palmer to the Raiders, and they are currently a whopping 60 million under the cap. They could sign Mike Wallace to a deal with an extremely large roster bonus, one the Steelers could never match, and give up one of their first rounders. They would be left with two Pro Bowl WRs AND another first round draft pick as well as deal a huge blow to a division rival. Another team to watch would be the New England Patriots, who have two first rounders as well. But really, any team largely under the cap and with a first rounder could take Mike Wallace away from the Steelers.
That being said, the Steelers do not want to see Wallace go. They will try hard to keep him around. Schefter puts it at a "50-50" shot that someone makes a play on Wallace. Personally it is hard for me to sit here and look at the Bengals situation and think that they won't go after him. But perhaps they are satisfied with A.J. Green and their above average supporting cast of WRs and want to address other positions this offseason. Either way, this is an interesting situation to watch develop.
This also alludes to my year-old claim that there will be a shift of power in the AFC North in the coming years, with the Bengals regularly the team to beat. I have been saying it for a long time, and I will probably write a post about it in here in the coming months.
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