Ravens receiver Mike Wallace torched the Pittsburgh Steelers with a 95-yard touchdown in Week 9.
He has an opportunity to show another former team how well he's doing these days* *this Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium when the Miami Dolphins come to town.
"It's just another team to me," Wallace said. "I have no regrets, no beefs, no anything with those guys. They paid me a lot of money; I can't be mad at anybody."
Wallace's last game with the Dolphins in 2014 ended in interesting fashion.
Wallace didn't play in the second half, not because he was injured, but because he was benched. Former Dolphins Head Coach Joe Philbin said then that it was a coaches’ decision, but a report suggested Wallace asked to be removed from the game.
Wallace was so angry afterward that teammate Brandon Gibson answered reporters' questions as Wallace stood, arms crossed in silence, beside him.
Wallace was traded away to the Minnesota Vikings for just a fifth-round pick about three months later, beginning a turbulent time in his career that now has him with his third team in three years.
As he prepares to face the Dolphins for the first time since the trade, Wallace is excited to once again show the kind of player he still is, especially now that he's getting more chances to do what he does best – make big plays. On Sunday, Wallace tweeted this:
Before the 2013 season, Wallace signed a reported five-year, $60 million contract, including $27 million guaranteed, with the Dolphins. He said it was strictly a financial decision for him and his family when he left Pittsburgh for Miami.
Wallace put up respectable numbers in Miami. He had 73 catches for 930 yards and five touchdowns in his first season and 67 grabs for 862 yards and 10 touchdowns in his second.
But he still came under fire because of the size of his contract. Wallace said he wanted to make more big plays with quarterback Ryan Tannehill, but that they still made many of them.
"When you make a lot of money, people expect certain things," Wallace said. "I definitely have fault on my end, but there was a lot of other fault too. Like I said, they gave me a lot of money in two years. No regrets."
Wallace still adamantly refutes the notion that he quit on his team, or didn't give everything he had to the Dolphins. He said he was never late to any meetings and was always one of the last players off the practice field – just as he still is with the Ravens.
"It was just an incident," Wallace said. "It was just a frustrating incident where you wanted to do well and you wanted the team to do well and it was not going that way. But like I said, I would never do anything like quit on my team. I work too hard for that, and my teammates work too hard for that."
Wallace has been a model player and teammate in Baltimore. His teammates, including quarterback Joe Flacco, have raved about him since he first arrived.
And when it comes to his play, Wallace is having his best season since his days in gold and black. Wallace leads the Ravens in receptions (51), receiving yards (792) and receiving touchdowns (four). He's on pace for his first 1,000-yard season since 2011.
Wallace signed a two-year deal worth a reported $11.5 million this offseason.
"It's really just been great to have him here," Head Coach John Harbaugh said. "I love his attitude. He works. He's competitive. He has great personality. He really wants to be a great player and he's been doing it for us. He's just had some huge plays for us and we needed it. He's done a great job."
Before the game against the Steelers, Wallace gave Head Coach Mike Tomlin a hug and chatted with a number of his former teammates. Wallace still has friends who play with the Dolphins, but said it's a different situation than when he had a rematch with the Steelers.
"The way they ended was two totally ... and my relationship with the organization … was just two totally different things," Wallace said.
"In Pittsburgh, I'm a young guy, I had to do what I had to do for my family. That was a money decision. I had to do what I had to do. Miami, it was bittersweet the way it ended. I didn't like the way it ended, but, like I said, they paid me a lot of money. I'm cool."
