Welker is not a possession guy, a possession guy is someone who catches the ball and gets the first down and thats it, a possession receiver doesn't lead the league in yards after the catch for several years. I hate when that term is misused. Mike Furrey was a possession guy, he would get the first down and go down.
Welker was used no different than Westbrook or Marshall Faulk except that he didn't receive direct handoffs. Tons of his passes were either right by the los of behind the los. Ever since the Patriots played the "Greatest Show on Turf" in the Superbowl, Bellicheck has been obsessed with having a player like Marshall Faulk and getting a player like him, and looking back at the film from how Faulk was used in those years, Welker did everything Faulk did from 2007 to 2009 except take handoffs.
Now it seems like Woodhead is slowly going into that role, except that Woodhead is actually taking handoffs, so it seems Bellicheck got what he wanted, even though Welker was great (I guess Bellicheck didn't want to give him handoffs) it would be great to see a guy like Danny get 1k rushing and 1k receiving like Faulk did in 1999 (perhaps next year or the year after that?, hoping for 1k from scrimmage first). Welker wasn't facing just dbs, he was facing guys that runningbacks faced, because he was doing a lot of things that runningbacks do, like Reggie Bush, except he was much better at it. Yes he did some things a wide receiver does, but he was a hybrid, and mostly used like a receiving runningback. The only difference is was lined up a little further away from the qb.
As far as Moss carrying 2 dbs and a safety all the time, that is ridiculous. Most of the time he would have one corner on him and a safety over the top, and if you look at most of his biggest plays, he was only covered by one guy. So obviously defenders were worried about someone else, I think Welker and Moss helped each other equally.
Welker is not being neutralized because of the absence of Moss, he is being neutralized because of his knee. He was one of the quickest guys, cutting and weaving in of traffic, that first year back from a knee injury you don't totally trust that knee. Like I said, he used more like a receiving runninback, hes not going to get as many yards if he can't trust that knee.
and btw you don't need someone like Randy Moss to open up the underneath stuff, other teams do it all the time and none of these have Randy Moss, all you need to do is throw a few bombs down the field, it really doesn't matter if the WR catches all of them, it still opens things up.
What would help is Tate actually catching some of those deep passes, and getting Woodhead a little more involved in the passing offense until Welker is 100 percent. Even if Moss was back it wouldn't help Welker right now, because its HIS KNEE. He was putting up the same stats when Moss was there the first few games, averaging 8 yards per catch, when is avg in the past was at least 10 yards per catch. He is still averaging around 8 yards per catch now that Moss is gone. Now Moss is gone we are seeing them targeting Welker less because he isn't as effective, because of his KNEE and the emergence of Woodhead
So instead of Welker getting 6 to 8 catches, hes getting around 4, Woodhead is taking those catches away from him because hes averaging 10.9 yards per reception compared to Welker's 8. Woodhead wasn't used much in the passing game at first because he was acquired during the season and probably took him a few weeks to be comfortable with the playbook, but they started to really use him in the passing game around week 6, right around when Welker's receptions went down. Not a coincidence.
Edited by: snow
