Right off the bat, let’s get this straight. I like Wes Welker. During his glorious time in New England, he was my favorite NFL player, hands down. I owned two Welker jerseys, and I thought it was pretty funny to make my baby daughter wear her own pint-sized version as well. Despite the ugly breakup Welker had with the Pats, I wish him the best, and I was sorry to see him go. I feel like I need to say all that because I’m now going to talk about how ugly Welker’s future might look, and I don’t want that to come off as sour grapes from a biased Pats fan. Totally unrelated, but did you know that Welker can also kick? He’s kicked off a few times, kicked two extra points, and even kicked a field goal once. How could you not love a guy like that? Oh right, there’s that weird political thing.
I can’t imagine that I’m breaking this news to you, but Wes Welker took a big hit in a preseason game against the Texans yesterday and suffered a concussion. You can read about it (and see a video for the next few days until NFL.com takes it down) here on the NFL.com site. As always, I love to point out when media outlets are failing on their injury coverage, so I’d like to point out that when reporter Chris Wesseling says, “Wes Welker missed three games last season after sustaining a pair of concussions in a two-month span,” he’s incorrect. It was actually two concussions within a three-week span, which makes it all the more dangerous, as concussions tend to be more severe (and reoccur easier) if they happen so close together.
Any chance you read my piece on Jordan Reed? If you did, just take everything I said about Reed and transfer it right over to Welker… except that you can now make it even more severe as Welker has now suffered yet another concussion. Basically, there’s no good news here for Welker (insightful, huh?). A lot of the recent NFL players that have left the game due to concussions had a history not unlike Welker. In that Reed piece, I pointed out that Jahvid Best, Kevin Kolb, Kris Dielman, and Laurent Robinson all ended up retiring after having back-to-back concussions. So take those examples and then throw in one more concussion to boot. In fact, this is at least Welker’s fourth that we know of. And really, you have to figure there’s maybe some from college, but maybe I’m just making that assumption based on the fact that Welker was coached by legendary concussion victim abuser Mike Leach at Texas Tech.
Before I paint too ugly of a picture, I should point out a few winners from my concussion database. TE Ben Watson suffered three concussions in 2011 plus one more in 2013, and he’s still playing in the NFL. Austin Collie had three concussions in 2010 plus another in 2012 and he’s playing too. Sort of. Well, I mean, he was a part-time guy last season and is waiting for a phone call now, so maybe that’s a tough call. Don’t forget though that Welker’s work in the slot opens him up for far more abuse than plenty of other players.
Anyway, my point here is just that this Welker situation might be uglier than what even the most pessimistic reporters write. Welker is tougher than starched Toughskin jeans, but at some point enough is enough and you have to preserve the brain cells you have left. Again, I wish Welker nothing but good health. But, if he does return, I’m sort of oddly fascinated to watch and see how long he can keep this up. It has some of the makings of a car crash that you can’t look away from.
