On Sunday afternoon, Dolphins wide receiver opted to let teammate Brandon Gibson speak to the media in his stead after he didn’t play in the second half of the team’s loss to the Jets.
Wallace chose a different course on Monday after a report surfaced that he’d earned the ire of teammates by asking out of the game at halftime. Wallace denied that he wanted to stop playing, saying that coaches told him that he was out of the game.
“I said OK,” Wallace said, via the Palm Beach Post. “It was coach’s decision. I went along with it. I just went along with what coach says. Coach makes the best decisions for the team. I feel like coach felt like he made the best decision. He did what he thought was right. I didn’t know why he did it. You have to ask coach.”
Coach Joe Philbin reiterated Sunday’s message that it was a coaching decision and said he made the decision after having a conversation with Wallace that he wouldn’t reveal. Gibson lent some credence to the report by saying that Wallace “may not have had the best team thoughts at one point” and quarterback Ryan Tannehill did the same when he said there was time for bad feelings toward Wallace to evaporate before next season.
“There’s a lot of time between now and April or whenever we start,” Tannehill said. “There’s a lot of time to heal and get back on the same page and move forward.”
Wallace caught 67 passes for 862 yards and 10 touchdowns in his second season with Miami, which makes two straight years where his production has lagged behind his best years with the Steelers. Wallace is set to make a base salary of $9.9 million next season with a cap charge of $12 million and the combination of on- and off-field numbers that could put his roster spot in jeopardy this offseason.
