Connelly’s Top Ten: Warrior Welker Wanted Elsewhere

By Michael in Featured, Now!, Top Story ⋅ March 14, 2013 at 8:06am ⋅ Post a comment

Wes Welker

1. The greatest receiver in New England Patriot history – in 6 years – 672 catches / 7,459 yards / 37 TD

2. He joins Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque, Phil Esposito, Dave Cowens, Adam Vinatieri, Ty Law, Mo Vaughn who left town

3. Welker will go down as one of the toughest players in Boston/New England sports history along with Dave Cowens, Terry O’Reilly, Rodney Harrison, Larry Bird

4. Danny Amendola was supposed to be the next Wes Welker at Texas Tech

5. Over the last two years – Amendola has played in 12 of a possible 32 games / Welker has played 37 of 37 games

6. Value for money – Welker is being paid $6mm coming off 118 receptions in 2013 which equals $50,847 a catch — Amendola had 63 receptions in 2013 and being paid $5,000,000 (guaranteed) = $79,365 a ctach

7. I always Trust in Bill – players that have been exiled – Ty Law, Richard Seymour, Deion Branch, Asante Samuel, Laywer Milloy, Adam Vinatieri, Dan Koppen, Mike Vrabel, Dan Andruzzi,

8. Please don’t say they haven’t won with him. The team was friggin 75-19 in regular season / was 2-0 in AFC Championship games

9. People will remember his drops against Giants and Ravens (remember Butter Finger spoofed him)

10. Randomocity:

* How many more big hits can he take (is that what Bill is thinking?)
* Weird that Kraft would come out and say they wanted him to be a Patriot for life
* Weird that Brady would not be consulted on this? Does his outwardly say he’s mad but knows in his heart he can make Amendola into a 80-100 reception guy
* Welker if healthy will catch 120 balls with Denver
* Ballard and Gronk at tight end / Hernandez and a new wide receiver / Amendola and Edelman (both injury prone) in slot
* Still can’t believe he got up from some of those hits
* Maybe Bill didn’t like the hair transplant
* How long before his wife tweets out on Bill

About Michael

Lifelong Boston resident who finds equal enjoyment in celebrating the local team's success as I do complaining about their failures. I have been writing the Top Ten for the last decade as well as five sports books: 26 Miles to Boston, Rebound, The President's Team, The Great Book of Boston Sports Lists and NBA List Jam.

Tags: Connelly's Top Ten, Top Ten

Discussion

2 comments for “Connelly’s Top Ten: Warrior Welker Wanted Elsewhere”

A gifted, super-loyal player who breaks the pass-receiving records, has a wonderful sense-of-humor (for which he gets punished), bonds with the community and his fellow players, and they elbow him off the team and out-of-town. What is not to hate? Worse, I understand. Taking all those hits for the team, he is now damaged goods. Amendola (never heard of him) is younger, probably faster. if he is as skilled and coachable as Bellichick usually finds, it was a smart move by the Pats.
But not a pretty one.

REPLY – MPC – A divorce that never needed to happen for sure but its over

Posted by philly | March 14, 2013, 8:46 am
I love Wes, but I understand what the Patriots did–they didn’t want to be left without a date to the dance. They can only make a commitment to a player if the player is willing to make a commitment to them. That the tradeoff of “testing the market” in free agency. See http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/9050742/2013-nfl-free-agency-new-england-patriots-quickly-shifted-wes-welker-danny-amendola

REPLY – MPC – It was a divorce that started with the Rex Ryan comments and never recovered

Posted by Alan | March 14, 2013, 11:42 am