The debate regarding the receiver's intentions during his now-infamous news conference leading up to the Patriots-Jets playoff game can now be put to rest. Each mention of the words "foot," "feet" and "toes" was intentional, and the receiver now says he regrets his brief career as a stand-up comedian.
"I don't think it’s worth putting coach [Bill Belichick] in that situation," Welker told the Boston Herald while waiting for his flight to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. "So in a sense, I do regret it. … As much as you might want to get enticed into that stuff, at the end of the day, it's just not worth it."
Welker, of course, was benched for the first offensive drive of that game — a drive that ended in a Tom Brady interception.
What's interesting about Welker's comments is that they seem to confirm Bart Scott's assertion that the Jets got the Patriots off their game by goading them into a war of words before the game.
"I think [the Patriots] bought into our game — and we're good at our game," Scott said during his lengthy postgame diatribe after the Jets won 28-21. "We can talk and play. I don't think they can."
Though Welker didn't say those exact words in his conversation with the Herald's Karen Guregian, he did hint that such off-field drama can distract a team's focus.
"At the end of the day, it's about football — that's what it's supposed to be about," Welker told the newspaper. "That's all that matters. It's concentrating on your job and what you do, and not concentrating on the riff-raff that goes with all that other stuff. … It's just not worth it. It's not always easy to keep a lid on it, but at the same time, there's a greater goal, and that's winning the game and playing good football. That's what matters. All that other stuff doesn't matter at the end of the day."
Perhaps it was the reality of heading to Honolulu rather than being in Foxboro that got Welker to feel regretful, or maybe it was realized during the opening drive of that playoff loss. Either way, it's safe to assume that Welker's comedy career is officially over.
