Wes Welker knows he’s a rare commodity in the National Football League.
“Catching 5-yard routes, you’ve got to be able to do something with it afterward,” the NFL’s most accomplished receiver said about making yards after a catch. “That’s something I’ve got to be able to do, or I’ll be out of a job here pretty quick. It’s definitely something I take pride in and try to accomplish.”
On Sunday against Tampa Bay, he had 10 receptions for 107 yards and one touchdown on the way to the relatively easy, 35-7 win over the Buccaneers at London’s Wembley Stadium. (Check out the full recap here.) Most of the catches were typical Welker — quick little screens where he zig-zags back and forth, trying to find daylight.
“He’s a great player. He does everything right out there. He’s always in the right spot. He gets open vs. any coverage, any route,” quarterback Tom Brady said of Welker, who now has seven career regular-season games with 10 or more receptions, including three this year (he had 12 vs. Buffalo and 10 vs. Tennessee). “He and Randy [Moss] and the way [Sam Aiken] played today, they all stepped up and made some great plays. We needed it.”
But it’s more than the catches. Brady trusts Welker in a way he trusts no other wide receiver. Over the last two games, Welker has caught 20 of the 21 passes that were thrown in his direction. This season, he’s been targeted for 62 passes and caught 46, the best percentage of anyone on the team who has more than 10 receptions.
On Sunday, Welker was targeted 10 times by Brady, and he caught all 10 passes, including a classic Welker-style touchdown where the slot receiver took a quick throw from Brady, made his way through traffic and splashed down in the end zone on a 14-yard reception with 2:16 left in the first quarter.
“Those guys did a great job of getting a hat on a hat, and when I saw [cornerback] Ronde Barber slip, I knew we had a chance to get into the end zone,” Welker said.
Welker arrived prior to the start of the 2007 season. Since then, Brady has completed 561 passes for 6,606 yards in 24 regular-season games. Welker has accounted for roughly one-quarter of those receptions (151) and one-quarter of that yardage (1,572) by himself. Sunday was no exception, as he accounted for 107 of Brady’s 308 passing yards.
“He had a lot of big plays,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “He comes through like he always does.”
Here are nine other things we learned Sunday:
EVEN WHEN HE’S LESS THAN HIS BEST, TOM BRADY STILL CAN BE OVERWHELMING
Remarkably, for a team that was able to put 35 points on the board, it was an occasionally sloppy effort on the part of the New England offense, which appeared to have its attention wander for large portions of the game, Brady included.
Despite the fact that he finished 23-of-32 for 308 yards, the quarterback threw a pair of interceptions. His first was a rather lazy-looking floater meant for Randy Moss that was picked off in the end zone by Tanard Jackson. It broke a streak of 183 completions between interceptions (dating back to a Week 2 loss to the Jets), which set a franchise record. (Drew Bledsoe went 179 consecutive throws without an interception, going from Oct. 23, 1995, to Nov. 26, 1995.) Brady's second pick was a shot downfield for Brandon Tate that was snared by Aqib Talib, an acrobatic interception that was probably the highlight of the day for the Bucs.
“Those plays happen at times when you’re trying to make the right play — it happens,” Brady said. “I’m happy with the way we responded in the second half. We came out and put a touchdown on the board early, and had a great drive there at the end. So I’m not disappointed at all.”
Even though Brady wasn’t sharp at times, he was more than good enough to help the Patriots beat the woeful Bucs, who could not offer any sort of sustained offense all afternoon.
“We went out there and put two touchdowns on
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