Signing Welker is now Pats’ main task

Wes Welker let one get away on Sunday.

Now, the Patriots can’t afford to let Welker get away.

“I think Wes wants to be here and we want him here,” owner Robert Kraft said last month. “Hopefully when the season ends, both sides will be wise enough to consummate something.

“He’s pretty special. Any time there is a player on this team I can look eye-to-eye and be at the same level, he’s an important guy.”

Ultimately, if the two sides involved in negotiations can’t see eye-to-eye on the matter, there’s always the franchise tag; such a designation would virtually assure Welker’s return to New England, where he has hauled in an NFL-leading 554 passes since he arrived in 2007, a league-best 122 coming in 2011.

The franchise tag would deposit $9.4 million in Welker’s savings account, a pretty hefty bump for a guy who’s earned $18 million-and-change over five seasons with the Patriots. At the same time, the designation would literally buy the team time to lock Tom Brady’s favorite receiver into a long-term deal.

Sunday’s drop was crucial (and there have been better back shoulder throws, by the way), but to even suggest that should be held against Welker in this matter is nothing short of moronic; the guy’s been virtually an automatic 100 catches per season since the Patriots landed him in a deal with Miami that rivaled Peter Minuit forking over $24 in goods for Manhattan Island.

The Patriots must sign Welker. There is no other option and it remains the Pats’ No. 1 task at hand this offseason.

“Look, Wes Welker’s not going anywhere,” NFL Network’s Mike Lombardi said prior to the Patriots’ 21-17 loss to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI. “We know they’re going to franchise him if they don’t enter into a long-term contract and by long term I mean two- or three-year type of deal. So they’ll take care of that.”

Welker is easily the most significant of a group of 20 Patriots who are due to become free agents when the new league year begins on March 13.

Quarterback Brian Hoyer and safety Bret Lockett are exclusive rights free agents, meaning the Patriots can retain their rights by matching the highest offer any other team might make them. Kyle Love is an exclusive rights free agent whom the Patriots will retain by offering him the three-year veteran minimum.

Re-signing defensive linemen Mark Anderson and Andre Carter (even though he’ll turn 33 in May and is coming off a season-ending injury) would be nice, although whether the team decides to employ a 4-3 or a 3-4 scheme may have something to do with all that. Anderson and Carter accounted for half of the Patriots’ 40 sacks during the regular season.

BenJarvus Green-Ellis was a 1,000-yard rusher in 2010 and led a relatively young backfield stable (35-year-old Kevin Faulk is likely to retire and late-season pickup Lousaka Polite is 30, but beyond them Danny Woodhead just turned 27, Green-Ellis is 26, Stevan Ridley 23 and Shane Vereen 22) by rushing for 667 yards in 2011.

Prior to his season-ending injury in this year’s opener, Dan Koppen had been the man in the middle of the Patriots’ offensive line for virtually his entire NFL life, but does the team lose anything when Dan Connolly, three years his younger, is the man snapping the ball?

Matthew Slater is the special teams captains and a Pro Bowler in that phase of the game. At 32, Deion Branch might be best suited as a third wide receiver, but he still caught 51 passes in 2011 and truly is a good Patriot soldier, the anti-Randy Moss (a total positive) in a football locker room.

But just as there are luxuries in the NFL, there are necessities as well; and clearly, retaining Welker’s services falls under the latter category.

“I would never want to think about that,” Brady answered when asked prior to the Super Bowl if it had occurred to him that the game might be his last with Welker.

Presumably, the Patriots don’t want to think about that, either.

(Glen Farley writes for the Brockton Enterprise of GateHouse News Service.)