Where's Wes Welker?

Through the first 2 weeks of the Patriots season, there has been one major topic that seems to have everyone confused. Why has Wes Welker only been targeted a total of 16 times for 8 receptions and 109 yards? This is the same player who last year had a career year with 122 receptions, 1569 yards and 9 touchdowns. Since he has joined the Patriots 7 years ago, Welker has been the most productive wide receiver in the NFL. In his prior 6 seasons with the team, Welker compiled ridiculous stats that put everyone else's to shame. In 79 career regular season games with the Pats he has a staggering 562 catches for 6214 yards and 31 touchdowns. His season average is 111 catches and 1221 yards!! But yet with all of these spectacular numbers, his has been replaced in the Patriots offense.

There have been several rumors swirling around Foxboro about why Welker's usage has become so diminished within the Patriots offense. The most prominent rumor has been his contract situation. This off-season, Welker came out publicly that he wanted a long term deal with the Pats, and to his credit he deserved it. But as any Pats fan knows this team has their own "special" way of doing business. Past performance doesn't necessarily translate to a big payday in the future.In the past players such as all-pros Vince Wilfork and Logan Mankins have held out for new contracts. Wilfork sat out of all of training camp a few years back before getting a big payday and Mankins sat out 8 games in 2010 before signing his franchise tender. The Pats have also let prominent players such as Asante Samuel, Ty Law and Ben-Jarvis Green-Ellis walk away because their contract demands have been to high.

In Welker's case, he was a very productive 31 year old receiver who wanted a multi year deal and wanted to be paid like a top wide receiver. According to sources close to the team, the Patriots did offer Welker a fully guaranteed 2 year deal worth $16 million towards the end of last season. Welker turned this offer down because he wanted more security then just 2 years. It is thought that Welker's age played a large factor in the Patriots deciding not to offer him a multi year deal more then the original 2 year offer. Instead the Patriots opted to place the franchise tag on Welker, which was for 1 year and $9.5 million. Welker initially refused the tender. He then made public comments about how this team doesn't respect their players or consider past performance as a viable option for awarding players new contracts. The team instead considers the past but looks at their future value and a measuring stick for deciding on contracts. About a week after these comments were made, he signed the franchise tender.

Since signing the franchise tender, not much has been said about his failed contract negotiations and he has been a so-called "good soldier" for the Patriots. He showed up for training camp on time and has seemingly done everything else needed to prepare for this season. Welker didn't play in any preseason games, but that's not unusual for the star Patriot players. But now taking into account that his playing time has been cut down during the regular season, people are wondering if the Patriots are punishing Welker for contract dispute and comments made during the summer. Personally, I don't think this team would just keep a perennial pro-bowler on the bench because of comments made in April. I mean they're paying his $9.5 million dollars! Keeping him on the bench for this reason would just seem very un-Patriot like. This team is very aware of their finances and if they were willing to place the very valuable and useful franchise tag on Welker, I guarantee he would be playing and expected to produce just like usual.

Another rumor that has been written about is that the Patriots are looking to trade Welker and that's why his playing time has been cut short. All throughout training camp there was constantly little rumors about the Pats shopping Welker to the rest of the league for the price of two 1st round draft picks. One rumor in particular that was heard towards the end of camp was with Welker going to Colts for a 1st and 2nd round pick in next years draft. Although the trade never came to fruition, there is an idea going around that the Patriots are holding Welker back to avoid injury in case another team comes calling before the trading deadline occurs in week 8. Since I am not inside the personnel meeting in Foxboro, I have no idea if this is even a realistic reason for Welker's shortage of playing time, but it seems to be a viable option.

The last reason I have heard about Welker's absence from the Patriot's offense is that since the Patriots have had so much success using the 2 tight end sets in the past 2 years, they are phasing out the need for an all-pro slot receiver. This off season, Rob Gronkowski received an 8 year, $55 million deal and Aaron Hernandez got a 7 year, $41 million deal which leads me to think this is the actual reason for Welker's diminished playing time. Think about it, in the past the Pats had wide receivers like Randy Moss, Deion Branch, Dante Stallworth, and Chad Ochocinco who were deep threats. Moss, Branch and Stallworth actually made defenses guard against the deep ball because at any time all three of them were capable of scoring from anywhere on the field. Ochocinco not so much; he was basically out there playing backyard football, running routes wherever he felt like running since he was too dumb to learn the playbook. But anyways, having these type of deep threats opened up the middle of the field which left Welker consistently open for the 8 to 12 yard pass. Now jump to this season and insert another genuine deep threat in Brandon Lloyd and 2 physically gifted tight ends with experience in the NFL. Imagine that these tight ends can run like wide outs, but are also big enough to take on the opposing teams linebackers. Apparently to Bill Belichick, having Gronk and Hernandez on the field along with Lloyd and Ridley is the most dangerous line up to face NFL defenses.

And that main point is the reason, I believe Wes Welker saw more of the pine then the field during week 1 and a portion of week 2. It's nothing personal like everyone is trying to make it out to be, it came down to a numbers game and there was no room for Welker. Under Josh McDaniels, the Patriots have been using a more balanced offense then they have in the past. The emergence of Stevan Ridley, has produced a running game that has taken on a bigger role in the offense. If your team is running the ball, the job of the wide receivers is now to block for the running back and make sure he has the necessary holes to run through. It's a well known fact that Julien Edelman is a more physical wide out and a better blocker then Welker. This fact explains why Edelman (aka the other little white receiver) has seen a greater number of snaps thus far then Welker. Now lets go back to week 2 against Arizona when Welker started the game on the bench. In the first quarter, tight end Aaron Hernandez suffered a serious ankle injury that caused him to miss the rest of the game. Insert Wes Welker. For the rest of the game Welker had a respectable game with 5 catches for 95 yards and played a major role in the Patriots late game comeback, which came up short as we all know when they somehow lost on a last second field goal miss by the usually reliable Steven Gostkowski. But you see my point, when both tight ends were in the game, the Patriots seemed to have no use for Welker since the middle of the field was occupied by these two huge specimens who can beat you with size, speed or both. Take away one of those weapons and Welker's old spot is now available as it was last year when he and Gronk destroyed opposing defenses. Essentially, the emergence of Aaron Hernandez as a stud tight end, has cause the diminished role of Wes Welker in the Patriots offense. Since Hernandez is going to be out for the next 6 or so weeks, Welker will once again play a huge role in the Pats offense. My thought is that for the next few weeks, Welker, Lloyd, Gronk and Ridley will carry the Patriots offense and by the time Hernandez returns, this 5 weapon offense will be the best in the NFL.

Through 2 weeks, Welker's production and playing time has been down, there's no doubt about that. But I honestly think the reason is that since they are running a new offense, different players have been placed in different roles and situations to see how it works. If you haven't noticed, the Pats offense hasn't been as productive thus far as they have been the past 6 years. On paper, this offense should rival the record breaking offense of 2007.I mean this year we actually have a deep threat who knows the playbook. The Patriots are obviously going through a small learning curve as they try and implement this balanced attack on offense. The loss of Hernandez definitely hurts this team but they will survive because that's what this team does.This team needs Wes Welker, and I think Belichick knows it after the performance of the offense through the first couple weeks. I wouldn't be the least surprised if tomorrow night, if we saw the return of the old Patriots offense with Welker catching 8-12 balls for 100+ yards and Gronk spiking a few balls in the end zone. .