To be fair- Wallace didn't 'hold out'- he never signed his RFA tender, so he was, effectively, not under contract. And that is pretty standard practice for guys wanting to secure a 'bigger deal'. If he'd gone to Camp, and gotten hurt- then what?
Also, Wallace has never publicly complained about anything. His 'moaning & whining' is the stuff of legend, perpetuated by the media who could never actually quote anything from him, and by messege boards that progressively got more worked up over a phantom report that Wallace wanted "Top 10 WR money".
In fact, the only factual quote we got from Wallace in regard to that is when he tweeted "Don't believe everything you read in the media".
He also 'tweeted' his congrats to Antonio Brown after Brown got his contract.
Now, granted- he didn't look like the Mike Wallace of the previous couple of seasons through 2012- but neither did guys that don't receive anywhere near the critisism of Wallace- guys like Antonio Brown, for example.
Chadman is going to be painted with the "Wallace lover" tag for the arguments he puts up, and that's ok. But Wallace had more TD's, more yards & a greater body of work than Brown- every year. If Brown is 'worth' $42 million, Wallace is worth more. Brown got his contract signed within days of Wallace rejecting an offer from the Steelers- yet at the time, word was both sides were close to a resolution. When Brown got paid, negotiations with Wallace fell apart. Chadman has called this the 'tit-for-tat' signing in the past- and will again. The Steelers FO (Read- Rooney) got their nose out of joint after Wallace knocked back another offer, and immediately over reacted & extended Brown (who would only be a RFA, not UFA the next season) to what was reported to be similar money to what they offered Wallace.
The result was, the Steelers overpaid Brown (Chadman likes Brown- really!) a year early (RFA in 2013..) & condemned Wallace (UFA 2013) to moving on, as funds, as we can see, are tight. For their investment, the Steelers got a WR (Brown) who couldn't live up to his 1 year success & was outperformed by the 'malcontenant' in Wallace, despite Wallace only 'going through the motions'.
It's ok, Brown's 780 yards as the #1 WR will be all that's required next season for the Steelers to make the playoffs....
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