MIAMI — Wes Welker finally is free to speak his mind.
He’s a coach, so “no one cares” what he says. And he’s also not with the New England Patriots anymore. Welker described the Patriots’ approach to talking to the media as “excruciating” Wednesday.
Welker did talk like a bit of an automaton while with the Patriots from 2007 to 2012, except for that one time he got benched for making foot jokes at Rex Ryan’s expense. He was much more eloquent Wednesday while speaking as the San Francisco 49ers’ wide receivers coach.
“It was at the point where I was like, ‘I don’t want to talk to the media. I don’t care. Like, fine. If you don’t want me to talk to them then I won’t talk to them.’ You can’t win,” Welker said.
Welker is the San Francisco 49ers’ wide receivers coach. He’s in the process of preparing for Super Bowl LIV against the Kansas City Chiefs, and he doesn’t really care what his players say to reporters.
“As long as they’re not too outlandish or anything like that, I think part of this deal is to have fun and enjoy yourself and not take it too seriously,” Welker said. “I never liked having to sit there and really feel like I said nothing but still be scared that I said something. It’s like, I’d rather focus on football than focus on saying something wrong at the podium.”
Welker doesn’t really find himself channeling Belichick as a coach very often either, though he certainly respects his former head coach.
“We’re different personalities and just different people,” Welker said. “But his thought process and the way he thinks about the game and those different things? Like, yeah. Absolutely, I try to find an inner Belichick on that stuff.”
Welker thought he’d never want to put in the work to be a coach while watching Nick Caserio, Bill O’Brien and Chad O’Shea coach his position with the Patriots. But he went into coaching after a year off from football because he missed the sport too much.
