Training Camp Confidential: Mike Wallace

It’s all about opportunity in the NFL when it’s shown to you what to you do with it. Some players veteran or rookie fumble away their hopes of making it. Others grab the opportunity, like Pittsburgh Steelers second-year receiver from Ole Miss, Mike Wallace. You catch the game winning touchdown against Green Bay as time expires—that my friends are how great careers get started.

One of the most fun loving, flamboyant players on the team, Wallace is excited about getting on the field this weekend saying, “Got a real good grasp of the offense. I’m excited about Saturday.” Wallace knows he won’t be getting many snaps when the Steelers open their pre-season at Heinz Fields against the visiting Detroit Lions but added, “We know it’s a game situation that’s the mind set.”

Going up against the likes of Ike Taylor and Bryant McFadden gets boring jokes Wallace, “We get to hit somebody else. I’m tired of hitting our people everyday. You can’t really hit them like you want to because we are on the same team. So it’s going to feel pretty good to get to smash somebody else for change.”

The anxiousness is evident that these guys just want to go but you can’t microwave the season and this is part of the process Wallace explained. “DB’s know what we like to do. We’ve been in camp for almost two weeks, plus OTA’s and mini camps. They know exactly out splits they know out routes. I know how they do. It’s getting kind of boring going against each other.” For the observers of the team’s daily practices, I think the sentiment is shared as the sun beats down on another scorcher this afternoon with temperatures reaching the 90’s.

Wallace, who won the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week twice last season in week nine and 15 talked about the natural role of helping out with rookie receivers Emmanuel Sanders and Antonio Brown saying, “All the things they are going through I just went through it. A couple months ago I just tried to give them a heads up on everything that’s going on because I know it’s kind of hard when you go in blind you’re rookie year.”

The Joe Greene Great Performance Award Winner, Wallace said, “Both #84 (Brown) and #88 (Sanders) are two receivers who look real good. They’re off the chain. They going to be real dangerous out there because they are quick in and out of their brakes. It’s crazy. Once they get the grasp of the offense we are going to be a real dangerous offense.”

It’s shaping up to be a big year for Wallace, taking over the starting role with Santonio Holmes being traded. Wallace became a father over the weekend to boot. Coach Tomlin let Wallace go home over the weekend to see his new baby girl Maliha, weighing in at five pounds, five ounces. With two kids of my own, word to the wise was letting him know that although he is missing his baby girl, he is getting much needed sleep at training camp he wouldn’t get otherwise. Prompting Wallace to say my girl [Vanessa Cole the babies mother] calls, “Telling me how she is waking up every three hours. She gets hungry. Makes it a lot easier on me let’s me focus just on football.” But don’t think for a second he isn’t missing his new pride and joy, it’s a double edged sword.

Two years removed from playing at Ole Miss, Wallace still stays close to the program saying he “Went down there and watched them over the summer. They look like they are going to be ready.” After winning the Cotton Bowl the last two years what does Wallace predict for Ole Miss in 2010? “We going to the championship this year (laughing) hopefully. Nah, we should win 8 or 9 games hopefully. We lost some good players Dexter McCluster, Shay Hodge, Jevan Snead our quarterback.” Confident in his team, Wallace added: “We got some players in place that hopefully surprise some people.”

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