I'll take Reggie Wayne. BB loves him. He runs every route on the tree.
There aren't that many routes on the Colts tree...and no post snap adjustments save for scramble drills and that was where he and Peyton increasingly seemed to disconnect of late.
Bowe would last about three weeks with Brady before he started getting the cold shoulder if not worse (onfield evisceration) because of the inconsistent focus and the dropsies. Too many people evaluate these guys based on cumulative stats often amassed in losing causes because situationally they don't perform. Watch lowlights and not just highlights...
Branch isn't performing at anything approaching vet minimum level...I don't know what some people think they're watching. His coordinator and QB can and will tell you that even when they don't amass stats Welker and Branch contribute a lot by doing all the little things right that help their team win. It was the same deal when Branch was here before and it was only good enough for back to back rings and a SB MVP he should have co-won with the QB. Bill walked away from two of these kinds of guys once before, albeit reluctantly due to overblown contractual demands. and lived to regret it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Welker will have a market to contend with because the assumption will be he can perform in any offense (albeit not at the level he performs at in this one that suits his skillset mentally and physically to a tee). Branch won't have a market because of Seattle. But Bill won't insult him because he didn't make him look bad trading another Moss season for a year and a half of him...
They're going to need to groom a replacement for Branch sooner than later, but that is easier said than done obviously...so he will finish his career here and not this season unless he goes down in a heap in the next several weeks.
What they need short term that has eluded them is a 3rd WR who is physical enough to get off jams and fast or agile enough to beat tight coverage and instinctive enough to assimilate into a sight adjusted offense and disciplined enough to perform consistently and mentally tough enough to take coaching from both the staff and his QB and mentally agile enough to translate all of that into performance on the field. Oddly that's not a combined skillset you generally find at the top of the draft. That's where you find gifted athletes who are sometimes one dimentional and increasingly as often as not morph into pains in the ass. Those guys will seldom turn out to be a good fit for this system in part because if you've invested heavily in them and lose them to injury or attitude issues you're not prepared to deal with the aftermath.
Being coachable and adatable and focused and driven is as much a part of what results in success or failure for a player here as talent is. Maybe more. They're all reasonably talented or they'd never have gotten this far. Mental toughness seems to be the rallying cry here every season with good reason. When we are we win or come damn close pending a lot of variables beyond anyone's control. When we aren't it doesn't matter how talented we appeared to be on paper. That's been SD's downfall for almost a decade now, and Indy's achilles heel for most of Manning's career (not to mention in his absence).
