My Two Cents on the Devastating Loss of Wes Welker

I am no longer capable of being shocked into silence by the year which my New England Patriots have been having. Maybe we are the little engine that could? But I am not holding my breath. One thought though: Wes Welker is a great player hurt in a meaningless game against a hapless foe in the weekend prior to a wildcard game. Why Bill? Why?

In Bill we trust? Perhaps, but not as much as in seasons past

Courtesy of George King at Sports Illustrated:

Handicapping the NFL Field

NEW YORK -- Now that was a weird day. Sad with the devastating knee injury to one of the real poster children for everything that is good about the NFL, Wes Welker. Flummoxing with the total collapse of the Giants and Broncos. Maddening with starters sitting to some degree in six of the games involving playoff contenders ... and the weirdo Colts deciding that individual records are important a week after deciding 19-0 wasn't. Strangely undramatic for a Week 17, with only two win-and-get-in games, neither of which was any good -- the Ravens handling the Raiders with slight difficulty and the Jets handling the Bengals with none.

Eeriest part of the day: Houston safety Bernard Pollard landing on Welker after he had blown out his ACL and MCL early in Patriots-Texans and fallen to the ground in agony. This was 16 months after Pollard, then with Kansas City, had dove into Tom Brady's knee, shredding ligaments.

"I heard Wes yell out, the same way I heard Tom yell out,'' Pollard told me last night. "It was the same yell. It was terrible. He went down right in front of me. I saw his knee buckle, then I fell on him, and when he went down, I said, 'Just my luck.' ''

What are the odds of the same defender being at the epicenter of the temporary demise of two true New England heroes?...