3:19Mike Wallace wasn't going to win an NFL receiving title playing on a team built around Adrian Peterson, defense and favorable field position. But he was averaging 4.3 catches for 48.7 yards through his first six games.
And those six games included season highs in catches (eight), yards (83) and Wallace's only touchdown in the Week 4 game at Denver. For those still keeping track of how the team does each week, the Vikings lost that game at Denver.
In the past four weeks, Wallace had two catches for 26 yards. He had no catches at Chicago, although Teddy Bridgewater did overthrow him after he got open behind the defense. He also had no catches against the Packers, although he did drop what would have been a first-down catch and had another deep ball overthrown to him.
Bridgewater was asked today for his thoughts on Wallace's past four games.
"Mike, he's a guy who works extremely hard and we're very close [on connecting on passes]," Bridgewater said. "And like I continue to say, each week in this offense, different guys are going to have an opportunity to make plays for us. When Mike's opportunity comes, I will be one of the happiest guys for him.
"He's probably one of the hardest working guys on this team. He's always staying back after practice catching balls on the Juggs machine. He's doing the little things that allow him to be a great player. We know that we've just been missing. But those opportunities are there, so we just have to keep trying to capitalize."
Bridgwater was asked if the problem could be the pass protection not allowing him to go deep as often as the team would like.
"Not at all," he said. "We have different schemes, different play calls that allow us to … take shots down the field or be successful in the intermediate passes. Teams know this is a big-play offense. Sometimes, they play coverages that take away those deep threats and forces us to check the ball down.
