Every big game apparently needs someone to blame, and Wes Welker has turned into that someone for Super Bowl XLVI.
That’s not particularly fair considering there are many reasons the Patriots lost, but sports isn’t often fair.
“You can never point fingers at anyone,” said safety James Ihedigbo Monday via the Boston Globe. “You look at the plays that [Welker’s] made all year long, how hard he played that game, and how hard he prepared for that game. We wanted it just as bad as [the Giants] did. They just made some key plays at the end and came out on top, so hats off to them.”
“If you look across the board, Wes made amazing plays all year long and even yesterday he did,” Ihedigbo continued. “As a team, guys made numerous plays for us to even be in the position we were in last night. So you wear it as a team.”
The Super Bowl came down to a handful of plays. The Patriots offense didn’t make them. The Giants offense did.
If we are concerned with assigning blame overall, we think it can go to the entire Patriots offense. This is not a team built to win low scoring games. The Patriots defense did enough for the team to win, but they couldn’t handle New England’s O going scoreless the last 26 minutes of the game.
Welker was a part of that, but he was only one part of an offense that ultimately was too inconsistent to become champions on Sunday night.