Not a Professor of Economics

Last night, on ESPN radio, there was a discussion of the comments former Patriot Wes Welker made about his former coach, the Hooded Nemesis Bill Belichick. Welker, perhaps understandably, noted that he felt he had done everything the team had asked him to do, and that his last year there, Belichick had still singled him out for unwarranted criticism.

After the season, of course, Welker got a lowball offer from the Pats, got a slightly higher one from Denver, and left town in a blaze of crossing routes. Now, to anyone not named Wes Welker, this sounds an awful lot like Belichick knew he wasn't bringing Welker back and purposely set about making sure his teammates weren't going to miss him too much. Call it character assassination, call it shrewd psychology, whatever; this is the NFL, where 370 pound men regularly slam into each other with the force of a SmartCar getting inhaled by a Hummer's engine intake. "Not nice" doesn't entire into it.