Pro Football Focus names Raven’s Mike Wallace the best at this route

Pro Football Focus is not the be-all-end-all source for in depth info. I personally will not comment in depth on players unless I’ve watched their film, but despite PFF’s arguably flawed grading process, they can be a useful resource. Recently, PFF did a series on the NFL’s best receiver when it comes to running each of the nine routes on a route tree, and Mike Wallace made the cut.

Best slant route runner (min. 10 targeted routes): Mike Wallace, Baltimore Ravens

Mike Wallace left defenders in the dust when running the slant route. He was targeted 18 times and caught 16 of them for 294 yards and 2 touchdowns. Wallace dropped his only two incompletions and led all wide receivers in both yards after the catch (181), WR rating (155.8), and total yards. Wallace twice went over 50 yards on slants, including one for 95, 87 of which were after the catch. On top of that, more than half (10/18) of the slants thrown to Wallace resulted in a touchdown or a first down.

That’s actually a pretty remarkable stat given that when a receiver runs a slant over the middle, they're likely to take a hard hit from a linebacker. As PFF mentioned, some of Wallace’s best plays have come from slants, including the longest receiving touchdown in franchise history. Much has been made of what the Ravens will do with Wallace, who carries a cap hit of $8 million, $5 million of which can be saved if he is cut. A case can be made the that the Ravens need Wallace, but I still believe if he is to stay on the roster, the team will need to restructure his contract in order to free up cap space to improve the team.