letekro
Experienced Starter w/First Big Contract
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2005
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I made 2 points: 1. It was a good throw 2. It was NOT the type of catch Welker routinely made. Which of those do you disagree with?
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Are we watching the same gifs? IMO Welker was clearly expecting it to his inside shoulder and Brady threw it outside. Who misread it? Idk and not knowing I can’t assign blame so I give a bit to both. At that point in a Super Bowl you HAVE to be on the same page and they weren’t. Welker had his feet off the ground and was twisting when he, as you pointed out, got two hands cradling the point. Yes it was catchable, anything you get two hands on I am A ok calling catchable, but to act like it’s a 90+ % catch rate routine pass is just being disingenuous. Man do I wish he had caught it but you can’t take away 6 years of elite slot play away from a guy for missing one tough 50/50 catch.
The pass is borderline perfect, so much so that Welker’s initial smooth rotation is to immediately grab it and continue to running for extra yardage.
The milisecond he drops it, he sweeps his leg and arms towards the falling ball and careens down in an awkward motion, due to re-adjusting to the ball post-drop. The ball comes out to the side because his hands hit the nose of the ball. It’s a routine catch that looks awkward due to the post-drop contortions that mislead you into thinking he was off-balance - due to adjusting - all along.
Watch when the leg sweep happens. It follows from his outreached ARMS that are desperately stabbing for a second chance. It's after he realizes he dropped it; the legs and arms had been on balance/aligned and waiting to get YAC.
Hands on nose of ball.
Routine catch
Body contortion, leg sweep, arm reach, all immediate readjustments post-drop as he falls to ground, causing it look like the pass led him to that off-balance state.
Anyone who thinks the throw was off-line
The real-time view. From this angle it appears that the placement of the ball causes him to go careening off balance. Easy to misunderstand until seeing the other photos and vids from different angles. But the reason the ball goes flying towards the sidelines -and he appears to lose balance - is because of the drop and subsequent volleyball punch effect from his bouncing off his closed together hands on the nose of the ball.
The Receiver was ALREADY off-balance when the ball hit his little hands. Both of his feet were ALREADY in the air and his body was ALREADY twisting in an attempt to correct his MISTAKE of not expecting the ball at his outside (closer to the sidelines) shoulder. Those contortions are PRE-drop, NOT post-drop.
How does this free up cap money? He was scheduled to earn $2m and just signed for $20m guaranteed ($8M signing bonus and $12M guaranteed) over two years? Shocked at his salary and glad he got paid, but I need help with the math that frees up cap money.
We are talking what if’s here so just roll with my hypothetical for a min. Brady throws it inside, Welker doesn’t twist and have to jump for it, catches the ball where he expects it cleanly, then gets lit up by the safety. Game over right? What would you expect Welker to do more consistently, make a twisting diving acrobatic catch? Or hold on after a jarring hit? I love Welker, he was my favorite player while he was here, but athletic ability was never his game or strength. He was tough as nails and did the dirty work. Now I don’t know the call, I don’t know the read, and yes from an outsider perspective the outside throw can certainly be argued as the correct throw. Welker got two hands on it, he should have caught it. However, I am not comfortable saying who read what wrong because without knowing the call and the read all we can say with 100% certainty is they both were not on the same page and at that point, in that game, you have to be. Until we get Brady, Welker, and McDaniels with truth serum I don’t think we will ever be able to say who messed that up.
it seems be 6 million.
That “natural body rotation” is his shoulders flipping because he realized it was thrown outside when he was expecting it in. There are some guys who can do that effortlessly and they get paid big bucks. Welker wasn’t one of those guys so it looks awkward. I have now watched those gifs and pictures 100 times and I think it was misread by one of them and I am not comfortable saying definitely who because we don’t have the call, and the proper read. It happens, think of that crazy catch Gronk had vrs Denver where he reached out with one paw behind him, even Brady was like “how the f did you catch that?”
