Prolific Welker falls to a far from Reliant Field

AMERICA AT LARGE:The Patriots lost the heart and soul of their team when Wes Welker suffered a serious injury, writes GEORGE KIMBALL

INJURIES TO non-contact specialists are so rare around the National Football League that contingency plans usually don’t even exist, so when Miami place-kicker Olindo Mare tore a calf muscle during pre-game warm-ups for a 2004 game in Foxboro, the best guess is that then-coach Dave Wannstedt gathered his troops around him and asked something like: “Any of you guys ever kick before?” and Wes Welker raised his hand.

Until that afternoon I had quite frankly never had occasion to so much as write his name, and I don’t imagine Bill Belichick knew much more about him than I did, but performing exclusively on special teams that day Welker became just the second player in NFL history to kick a field goal, kick an extra point, return a kick-off, return a punt, and make a tackle – all in the same game.

Then that December, when the teams met in Miami in a late-season Monday night game, Welker returned a punt 71 yards to set up a touchdown as the Dolphins handed the Patriots one of their two losses that year.

When Welker became a free agent after the 2006 season and the Patriots first tried to better the Dolphins’ offer of $1.35 million for a one-year contract and in the end traded a pair of draft choices to acquire him, you had to wonder if they were doing it for the right reasons. (That a player has consistently been a thorn in your side isn’t necessarily a good one.)

Who could have imagined that, handed his opportunity, Welker would proceed to become the NFL’s most productive receiver over the next three seasons? But perhaps the most accurate assessment of his value was reflected at the windows of the nation’s sports books this week after a devastating injury in the season finale knocked Welker out of the play-offs.

New England, who had opened the 2009 season a 7 to 1 betting choice to win Super Bowl XLIV and had been as low as 3 to 1 not that many weeks ago, have slipped to 11 to 1, behind the favoured Colts (3 to 2) and Chargers (5 to 2) among AFC rivals. The Saints (3 to 1) and Viking (5 to 1) also command shorter odds. The unavailability of Welker is a principal factor in the oddsmakers’ pessimism.

When the Patriots acquired him three seasons ago they viewed him as a reliable third receiver who might take some of the heat off their big threats, but Welker quickly established his credentials as a sure-handed “possession” receiver (ie, one most likely to hang on to the ball) and, in the process, became quarterback Tom Brady’s security blanket. In the near-perfect 2007 season, for instance, Randy Moss caught an NFL-record 23 touchdown passes, but Welker, with 112, caught more balls.

In three years in Miami Welker had grand totals of 96 catches for 1,121 yards and one touchdown. In three with New England the numbers became 346, 3,688, and 15. His 123 receptions this year led the NFL as he became the first player in Patriots’ history to record three consecutive 100+ catch seasons.

Standing 5ft 9ins and weighing 190lbs in a game dominated by giants, to say he has been an overachiever rather understates the case. Despite an outstanding high school career in Oklahoma he didn’t get so much as a nibble from big-time college programs, and only slipped through the back door at Texas Tech when a fellow recruit reneged on his commitment, freeing up a scholarship at the last minute.

If he had been considered too small for college football, NFL teams were even more dismissive. Undrafted coming out of Texas Tech, he signed a free agent contract with San Diego and overcame the odds to make the opening day roster, only to be cut in week two. The Dolphins picked him up, and a month later he was introducing himself to Belichick by kicking that field goal in Foxboro.

Numbers alone hardly do justice to his value to the Patriots. Over the past few days more than one team-mate has described him as “the heart and soul of our team”, and it isn’t just because the smallest guy in the New England starting line-up invariably has the dirtiest uniform on the field by the time the second quarter starts.

Alas, last Sunday in Houston there would be no second quarter for Welker. We’re talking about a guy who is tackled more than a hundred times a year, but it wasn’t one of the big guys who got him, it was the turf at Reliant Field. On the Patriots’ fourth offensive play of the game, he cut sharply going after a Brady pass, his knee slipped on the spongy surface and collapsed underneath him. The damage was done even before Texans’ safety Bernard Pollard landed on top of him. (In case you’re keeping score, yes, the same Brandon Pollard who, in the employ of the Kansas City Chiefs, put Brady out for the season last year with a similar injury.)

Welker tore both the anterior cruciate (ACL) and medial collateral ligaments (MCL) in his knee. He is obviously lost for the balance of the post-season, and given the protracted rehabilitation required for injuries of this severity, his unavailability could extend into the 2010 season. And there we’re talking best-case. (Welker’s former team-mate Rodney Harrison, whose own retirement was hastened by a similar injury, warned: “It may never be the same.”

Belichick sounded as if he were blaming the Houston grounds crew in blaming the venue: “It’s terrible,” he said of Houston’s hybrid indoor/outdoor facility, “one of the worst fields I’ve seen. That’s how you get these non-contact injuries.”

As the oddsmakers’ numbers would suggest, more than Welker’s offensive numbers will be affected. In his absence, the Baltimore Ravens, Sunday’s foe, and future play-off opponents (if there are any) will have the luxury of double-covering Moss from start to finish. Or, as Brady, when asked about possible replacements, put it: “You can’t replace Welker He’s everything you ask for.”