Some of the biggest news to come out of free agency this year was
Wes Welker leaving Tom Brady to travel westward into the waiting arms of Peyton
Manning, as well as the subsequent arrival of Welker 2.0 in New England, Danny
Amendola.This news made it seem almost obligatory that we compare the two and
see what projections we could make about their upcoming seasons.
Let us start in New England, if Amendola can remain as sure-handed
with the Patriots as he was with the Rams we could see incredible improvement
in his fantasy numbers this season. For the whole of the 2012 season Amendola
had a drop rate of 3.13 drops per 100 catchable balls while Welker came in with a
rate of 11.27, a number 8.14 drops in favor of Amendola, meaning for every 100
catchable balls thrown Amendola will catch 8.14 more of them than Welker.
Assuming that Amendola will get the same number of catchable balls
in 2013 that Welker received during 2012 we would project Amendola to have an
even more productive season than Welker did last year, our projections would
indicate 129 catches for Amendola this season. If Amendola maintains his yards
per catch (YPC) from STL then we could project based off Welker’s number
of catchable balls a season total of 1,363 yards, nearly the same output Welker
had this season.
If Amendola
can even be close to maintaining his production level from 2012 with the
increased talent from his new quarterback we would look for Amendola to have a
career year in all categories. His health does linger as the major question
mark for his upcoming season, Amendola has played just 42 games in 4 seasons..
But think of this, Welker runs more than 70% of his routes over the middle
meanwhile Amendola runs more than 80% of his routes in the same area, is it
possible that on those additional 10% of over-the-middle routes that Amendola
has been getting hurt? If so then perhaps injuries won’t be a problem for
Amendola in New England.
