The game of chess between receiver Wes Welker and the New England Patriots had been going on for some time now, and that game is officially over. As Albert Breer of the NFL Network reports, the Denver Broncos have signed Welker to a two-year, $12 million deal after the Patriots refused match it. According to Breer, the Patriots’ final offer was for $10 million over two years, with incentives. The Pats tried lowballing their leading receiver before the 2012 season, only to place the franchise tag on him as a simple $9.5 million, one-year stopgap. Now, it would seem that Bill Belichick has set the bar far lower than Welker would like. According to several sources, New England’s first offer to Welker this time around was “laughably low.” Far be it for us to question Belichick’s football acumen, but we’re not too sure about this, especially when Tom Brady re-did his contract to a more cap-friendly version, and Welker is by far his favorite and most reliable receiver. Brady might see that this a mild slap in the face. [Also: Lions reach four-year deal with running back Reggie Bush ] Welker will be 32 years old in May, but his skill set takes on age better than that of most receivers. He’s predominantly a yards-after-catch guy who takes passes from at or behind the line of scrimmage and makes his bones from there. In addition, there’s nobody better in the league at running option routes, and no team’s playbook has more option routes in it than New England’s. From Chad Jackson to Joey Galloway to Chad Ochocinco, we’ve all seen what happens when a receiver runs the wrong route on Brady just once: He gets the Brady Death Stare, and then, he enters the Witness Protection Program, never to be seen again. Welker tried to be the consummate pro through this, but everyone has their limits. “Your mindset is just to kind of dig deep, understand the situation, and just go out there and play to the best of your ability whenever you get the opportunity,” Welker told me last October , when his snap counts were going up week by week. “Once you get the opportunity, you make the most of it. I’ve tried to do that, and just tried to help the team win. Whatever I need to do to do that, that’s what I’m going to do.”
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Wes Welker agrees to terms with the Denver Broncos (Shutdown Corner)
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