Welker - Amendola.......A Good Move for New England? Good Move for You?

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.