DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
http://www.nydailynews.com
January 23 2011
Mike Wallace has shown an ability to make plays over the middle as evidenced by his 55-yard catch-and-run against the Raiders. (Gojkovich/Getty Images)PITTSBURGH - One afternoon when Mike Wallace, the Steelers receiver, was in elementary school, he received a report card with two failing grades for the marking period. His mother, Sonjia, was already at work, managing the night shift at the Metropolitan Developmental Center, a mental health facility in New Orleans, so his sister Quanna, a stickler 10 years his elder, answered the phone when he called with his grades.
"Wait 'til I get there," she said, before driving to pick him up in her Grand Prix.
Upon seeing him, she took him back to their one-story home in Algiers, an urban neighborhood on the West Bank of the Mississippi River, and unleashed "a few licks."
"She got me right," Wallace says, shrugging. "From then on I just ran."
Fifteen years later, Wallace, 24, is the NFL's fastest growing threat. He clocked a 4.28 in the 40-yard dash at the draft combine in 2009, led the league in yards per catch (19.4) as a rookie and streaked downfield for 60 catches this season, totaling 1,257 yards and 10 touchdowns. Sunday night he will be expected to stretch the Jets' secondary at Heinz Field in the AFC title game, re-establishing himself as an elite vertical option after being limited to 20 yards on three receptions last week against the Ravens.
"When I first saw him I was like, 'Is that an animal out there?'" Steelers wideout Antwaan Randle-El says. "What else moves like that? A gazelle?"
The evolution of Wallace from a wideout with long strides and quick-strike capabilities to a nuanced receiver is ongoing. With increased responsibility in 2010 due after Santonio Holmes was traded to the Jets last April, Wallace, a former Holmes protege, welcomed the challenge, meeting with new coach Scottie Montgomery the morning after the trade. Wallace was the first receiver to report that day.
"There's only one language I speak," Montgomery told him. "That's the language of production. Don't speak anything else to me."
Counterparts are increasingly awestruck in detailing the speed. The Jets receiving corps saw him frequently while studying game film of the AFC North, the division the Jets were paired with this season, as Wallace became a familiar blur across the screen.
"Dude is unreal," Jets receiver Jerricho Cotchery says, punctuating his point with spaceship sound effects to describe Wallace's pace.
"I've seen a lot of fast guys, but he can fly. Santonio came in and all he could say was, 'The boy can roll.'"
Wallace is one of the NFL's most dangerous deep threats, with 60 receptions for 1,257 yards (21.0 yard average) and 10 touchdowns. (Wickerham/Getty Images)* * *
There was a time when Wallace could do no better than idle on the depth chart. At O. Perry Walker High, Wallace, then a bone-thin product of bayou gumbo and po'boy sandwiches cobbled together by his mother, did not record a touchdown reception until his senior season.
Saddled behind future first-round draft pick Buster Davis, Wallace played defensive end one game to contain an out-of-pocket quarterback. Wallace broke into the backfield for five sacks.
"He was slender but tough," says David Johnson, who coached Wallace at O. Perry Walker. "The light didn't come on until that offseason."
Johnson hauled nine players to a summer camp at Texas A&M then. No matter the scheme - man-to-man, Cover 2 or any zone variation - Wallace blew past defenders, leaving cornerbacks to put their heads down and give chase, hoping he'd drop the ball behind them. During the season, few could contain him.
"Everything looked real awkward when he ran," Johnson says. "It was never picture perfect, the arm and leg rarely in sync, but it got him home alright."
During one game, Wallace, motivated by the bump-and-run employed by his opponent, yelled to Johnson for a play call that would target him.
Johnson adhered, eschewing a huddle and yelled, "Throw it to (Wallace.)" Wallace strode into the end zone for a score. The reward, per his family, was use of his sister's car, and more came. As a senior, Wallace had 60 catches for 1,039 yards and 19 touchdowns. He also returned four punts and four kickoffs for touchdowns. Seven more were called back due to penalties.
"I was only getting faster and faster," Wallace says.
Safeties sought to hinder the momentum, sticking hands inside his pads to unsettle Wallace at the top of his routes when he got to Ole Miss. In his junior season, though, Hugh Freeze became his position coach. To begin, Freeze saw that Wallace, while extraordinary in a straight line lacked the flexibility to dig in and curl back for a catch or round off the top of a route while breaking in and out of patterns. In team meeting rooms, wideouts would call each other out and argue whether they had made mistakes on tape.
"Man, I wish I had taken video," Freeze says. "In Michael's eyes, he never did anything wrong. I could have gotten a million hits on YouTube with his arguments."
There was no debating effectiveness. Against Florida as a junior, the Rebels struggled offensively much of the game. Freeze, on the sideline, felt Wallace would open up the passing game if he got behind his corner. The next play in the third quarter called for a go route to Wallace, who caught the ball, his only reception of the day, and scored a 77-yard touchdown. As Wallace sprinted, Freeze attempted to keep up with him toward the end zone and yelled repeatedly, "You have to feed the man! You have to feed the man!"
* * *
Only one NFL team sent a receivers coach to Wallace's pro day in Oxford, Miss., that March. Randy Fichtner, a former Memphis assistant who signed on as the Steelers' receivers coach and now their quarterbacks coach, was familiar with Wallace from coaching against him at Ole Miss. He worked him in drills with a group of 15 receivers and tight ends. Fichtner, increasingly intrigued and throwing the whole time, told Wallace to take more repetitions. The coach left with sweat "dripping all down my pants."
The humid day's work was worth it.
"Mike Tomlin tells us to keep in mind a guy that we would be willing to jump on the table in the draft room and stand up for," Fichtner says. "I felt that for Mike."
By the time he was taken in Round 3 of the draft, he was the 11th wide receiver selected and the 84th player overall. Fichtner, then equipped with Ward, the MVP of Super Bowl XL and Holmes, MVP of Super Bowl XLIII, worked Wallace into the fold. It was an opportunity for Wallace to fill the vertical void created when Nate Washington, another burner, signed a free agent deal with Tennessee.
On the practice field, Wallace heard a common refrain.
"Stop chopping!" Montgomery yelled. "Just run!"
He was also told a new tactic: Slow down.
"I was like, 'Wait, what?'" Wallace says. "Never heard that one before."
Last season, the game against Green Bay crystallized Wallace's growth. On the opening play, Wallace burst free for a 60-yard score.
Then, with three seconds left, down 36-30, the Steelers, driving at the 19-yard line, put Wallace, Ward and tight end Heath Miller spread on the left side and isolated Holmes across the field. Wallace went down the sideline, Ben Roethlisberger put the ball on his back shoulder and Wallace turned into it, catching the ball and keeping his feet in bounds jut as Holmes had in the Super Bowl.
"Dead feet," Holmes says. "Get 'em down."
Challenges remained this year as film displayed remaining deficiencies. Of all the touchdown-scoring routes Montgomery watched, he noticed none were over the middle or making a defender miss. The next week, against Oakland, Wallace caught a ball across the middle and took it in for a 55-yard score. The following workday, Wallace was waiting for Montgomery when he arrived at the office.
"You said I couldn't do what?" Wallace asked.
Discipline has forced Wallace to sharpen his route running but it has been the devastating speed that separates him. On the inside of his right arm, just below the crook where he cradles the ball, there is a tattoo that reads: "One Man Stands Alone".
"That's for when I burn 'em," Wallace says.
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