Welker is hot in the slot
Published 9:13 pm Wednesday, January 30, 2008
No matter how hard they tried, the Patriots couldn’t stop him. Twice a year from 2004 to 2006, as a member of the AFC East rival Dolphins, he tormented New England by piling up yards as a returner and ringing up catches as a receiver. Sometimes he did both in the same game, like when he caught nine passes for 77 yards and returned four kickoffs for 103 yards October 8, 2006, in Foxborough.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick must have felt like he was playing the role of Wile E. Coyote to this guy’s Road Runner. Whatever trap Belichick set didn’t work. Obviously, he needed to find a better solution — and he came up with the ultimate one.
He traded for Wes Welker.
“We got him and we said, ‘How did that happen?’ ” Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi said of the March 5, 2007, deal that sent a second- and a seventh-rounder to the Dolphins. “To get a player like that, to just give someone up like that. I don’t think he’s had a statistical year like he’s had this year, or even close to it in his past seasons, but I think we always considered him a threat and a guy that we had to focus on first and foremost when it came to the Miami Dolphins’ passing offense.”
Of all the Patriots’ offseason acquisitions, including wide receivers Randy Moss and Donte’ Stallworth, linebacker Adalius Thomas and tight end Kyle Brady, no player has been more valuable than Welker in helping propel the Patriots to where they now stand — on the threshold of completing the greatest season in NFL history with a win against the Giants in Sunday’s Super Bowl.
From the get-go, the 5-foot-9, 185-pound Welker has been hot in the slot. He caught 112 passes (tied with the Bengals’ T.J. Houshmandzadeh for the league lead) for 1,175 yards and eight touchdowns in the regular season. He also averaged 10.0 yards on 25 punt returns. In two postseason games, while opponents have held Moss to two catches for 32 yards, Welker has caught 16 passes for 110 yards and two TDs.
“Pound for pound, Wes is probably the toughest football player in the league,” said Patriots linebacker Junior Seau, who went on to call him a “little termite.”
“There are different types of players in the league,” Seau added. “There are guys who want to be great and there are guys who need to be great. He’s one of the need guys.”
Who could have seen this coming? Apparently, no big-time college program except Texas Tech, the only D-I school to offer Welker a scholarship — and then only because another player backed out of his commitment — after he scored 90 touchdowns and set other statistical marks as a multipurpose player at Heritage Hall High School in Oklahoma City. Apparently, none of the 32 NFL teams, which allowed him to slip through the draft unclaimed after he wasn’t even invited to the 2004 Scouting Combine.
The Chargers brought him in for a tryout after the draft and he had a good preseason campaign. He even averaged 25.5 yards per kickoff return in his pro debut in the first game of the season for San Diego (4 returns, 102 yards), but the Chargers cut him after that game.
He was signed by the Dolphins one week later and in three seasons playing for the Dolphins, he became the franchise leader for both kickoff return yardage and total returns, and he ranks second in Dolphins history in punt return yards. He led the Dolphins in receptions with 67 catches in 2006, and Miami offered him a one-year, $1.35 million contract as a restricted free agent after the season and then traded him to New England.
Not big enough. Not fast enough. Football folks have branded Welker with those labels for years. Surely, that must have lit a fire under his 5-9, 185-pound frame and filled him with angry determination to prove the “experts” wrong.
Well, not exactly.
“I think it’s just kind of worked out that way,” said the 26-year-old Welker. “It’s not really why I did anything or worked hard to get to this point. It was just a matter of me wanting to succeed and not having any regrets and making sure I gave myself every opportunity to do something in this league.”
Do something? Although he started just three of 47 games from 2004-06, Welker racked up 6,216 all-purpose yards. Only Giants running back Tiki Barber (6,613) had more during those three seasons.
Yet Welker hovered under the radar of fans and players alike. When Patriots fullback Heath Evans met Welker in 2005 in Miami, where they were teammates briefly, he thought Welker was the Dolphins’ kicker. Even though Stallworth lives in Miami in the offseason, he didn’t know anything about Welker.
But the Patriots recognized a migraine when they felt one. “We had a lot of difficulty matching up with him and covering him — not only on offense but we knew he was a significant threat in the return game as well,” says vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli. “He was a handful as an opponent. Bill knew that. I knew that.”
So they said: Let’s make a deal. Now, instead of being a pest to the Patriots’ defensive game plan, Welker is a protagonist in their offensive playbook.
“Wes is an outstanding player,” Belichick said. “Playing against us, he killed us just about every time we played him. The only way we could handle him was to really double cover him. He also hurt us in the return game. In fact in one game he even kicked off and kicked field goals against us and killed us there too when (Olindo) Mare got hurt in pre-game warm-ups. So I think that just kind of speaks to Wes’ competitiveness, versatility, and his total skills set.
“He’s a tough player. He’s productive on offense catching the ball, running with the ball. He’s a productive returner … He’s one of our hardest workers.”
Welker grew up playing soccer. From age 4 to 17, Welker roamed fields indoors and outdoors in Oklahoma City, darted between and around opponents and learned to recognize where other players were. He once scored 17 goals in an indoor championship game. Playing soccer helped him hone skills he would use in football.
“Absolutely,” he says. “You use your feet a lot, and I feel like I’ve got good feet. And it helps with your quickness. I think it definitely played a big role in my style of play.”
Welker is more quick than fast — don’t bet on him in a 100-yard dash against Moss — which serves him well as the Patriots’ slot receiver. He primarily runs short and intermediate option routes, which means he has alternatives depending on what defenses and, sometimes, New England’s other receivers do.
For example, his first option might be a seam route, his second choice might be to break it off into a slant and his third could be to stop, pivot and run toward the sideline or to an open area in a zone defense. The Patriots run multiple plays of that nature, and just drawing up the diagrams can make you dizzy.
Welker also has an uncanny ability to use his quickness to separate from defenders. According to Stats LLC, he was a passing target 145 times during the regular season. That means Tom Brady completed 77 percent of the passes he threw to Welker.
Welker’s role and his skills are a perfect match in the Patriots’ offense. “They allow him to do things he can do. They don’t ask him to do things he can’t do,” says John Guy, the Bills’ vice president of pro personnel. “You don’t see them throwing a fade route to him. They don’t throw deep routes to him. He’s just a good little football player with a compact body. And he’s quick enough to get open.”
Before New England faced Jacksonville in a divisional round playoff game, Jaguars cornerback Rashean Mathis said of Welker: “He plays the slot very well. He runs great routes and is quick enough and is doing it better than anyone who does it this year.”
Welker contributes more than as a receiver. Part of his job is blocking on running plays. He may be one of the smallest players on the field, but he doesn’t hesitate to throw his body into linebackers or safeties who are bigger and stronger.
“I know he caught 112 balls, but he made some big-time key blocks,” says Pioli. “He’s been one of the best blocking wide receivers in the league this year, if not the best. He’s tenacious. And there’s times when he’ll run into guys and bounce off them, too.”
The Giants had better not overlook the little man in the middle.
Welker caught 11 passes for 122 yards in the Patriots’ 38-35 win over New York in the regular-season finale.
He could do it again.
