Did Wes Welker suffer a concussion?
Something isn't adding up here, and, if I had to make an educated guess, it is tied to what kept him out of practice in Tampa on Thursday, Aug. 23. Welker made the trip to Tampa and was suited up for a full-pads practice Aug. 22, and I think something happened that day.
Other reports have noted that a personal issue Welker was dealing with (a death in the family) kept him out of preseason action, and that might have been the case for the Eagles game, but I think that was separate from what went down in Tampa (my educated guess is a concussion). My sense is that the Patriots were easing Welker back into the mix Sunday based on whatever went down in Tampa and how it affected Welker's preparation to assume a full-time load in the opener.
Ok, I get it. This is speculating on speculation. I don't want to blow Welker's one quiet game out of proportion, but it does make you wonder why his snaps were so down in this one game.
Reiss doesn't host a talk radio show, he isn't one to throw wild sensational speculation out there. The fact that he calls a concussion, or any type of injury, an educated guess has to get you thinking. At the same time, this was buried in a mailbag and not a blog post or article.
There has to be a good reason Welker saw such little playing time, and I'm not buying Josh McDaniel's excuse.
”I think the game plan each week is really different,” McDaniels said. ”We definitely had some personnel groupings. I don’t know the exact number of snaps, but we played quite a few snaps of three tight ends in the game at the same time, and then we played some two tight ends, with two running backs in the game at the same time. So I think each week here, I think we try to make the decision of what groupings, or what personnel matchups may give us a certain - whether it’s an advantage or not, we don’t know - we try to maybe quiet the game down a little bit, or take advantage of a situation we think we can take advantage of. We kind of decide those on a week-to-week basis. Certainly Wes had some opportunities in the game, and made the most of a few of those. Then we had some other opportunities we didn’t quite hit. But no, Wes’ role, it’s the same as we’ve always gone. We’ll go each week and try to do what’s best to help us win.
There's no reason to have your best receiver play limited snaps as part of your game plan. How is anyone's offensive game plan to not put their number one threat at the receiver spot on the field? As per usual, there's something the Patriots aren't telling us and I'd tend to lean with Mike Reiss on this one.
Welker could've suffered an injury in training camp, and though he was fine for the opener (was not on the injury report) they probably wanted to slowly wean him back in. Whether that injury is a concussion or not? We might never know.
That said, I fully expect Welker to play his normal compliment of snaps in Week 2.
