Carlson: Welker had trouble with Brady’s if f y throw

He kept them in check but barely.

“Yeah, it hit me in the hands,” he said of the pass, a play that could’ve iced the game for the Patriots and sealed his fate as a Super Bowl legend. “I mean, it’s a play I never drop.

“Most critical situation and I let the team down.”

To some, Welker is the goat of the Super Bowl, a chump, a schmuck.

To me, he’s an example for every parent, every coach, heck, every person who wants to know how to handle adversity. He faced the music and refused any excuses. He acted with class and dignity.

Hardly sounds like a goat to me.

“He’s never going to make excuses,” said Andy Bogert, who coached Welker in high school at Heritage Hall. “That’s the way he’s always been — never make an excuse. He handled it the way he should’ve handled it.”

Yet, we all know that people aren’t always so classy.

(See, Mrs. Tom Brady’s postgame comment about Welker and the rest of the Pats’ receivers.)

And truthfully, Welker could’ve thrown other folks under the bus, most notably Mr. Gisele Bündchen.

On second down with a little over four minutes left in the game, Brady recognized some confusion in the Giants secondary. It was obvious enough that NBC commentator Cris Collinsworth mentioned it, and when the ball was snapped, Welker ended up being the beneficiary.

He was wide open in the secondary.

Brady saw him and lofted the ball his way, but instead of putting it where Welker could catch it in stride, he threw it a bit high, a bit behind him and to the wrong shoulder. Welker, who was running full speed, first had to twist toward the sideline, then leap in the air. He got both hands on the ball but couldn’t come up with it.

“You’re running one way and trying to reach behind you,” Bogert said. “It was there. He’s made those catches before, but still, it was a difficult catch.”

Welker didn’t have a defender within three yards of him when the ball arrived. No reason that Brady, who had all the time in the world to make the throw, shouldn’t have put that pass in a better spot.

He knows, after all, that he was throwing to a guy who isn’t known for his leaping catches. I mean, Welker is only 5-foot-9. Has been since the day he and Brady became teammates five seasons ago.

But here’s the thing: Welker wasn’t using his height or Brady’s poor throw or anything else as an excuse after the game. That’s never been his style. Not when he was an All-state player at Heritage Hall and went practically unrecruited by colleges. Not when he was an All-american at Texas Tech and went undrafted by the NFL. Not when he blew out his knee two years ago and everyone said he’d never be the same.

“He inspires me,” said Graham Colton, Welker’s buddy since kindergarten and his quarterback in high school who is now a singer-songwriter. “A lot of what I’ve gone through and still go through in trying to carve my own path, I always go back to Wes and what he’s been able to do. He’s had so much adversity in his career, but he takes it in stride.

“He’s just such an inspiration for so many people.”

Take this post that Colton noticed on Welker’s Twitter account Sunday afternoon — “I’m a struggling actor in Chicago. You inspire me.”

“Everybody always talks about Wes and his heart,” Colton said. “That’s the biggest thing he has, and it shows up in wins and losses and ups and downs.”

Welker cares so much about his craft, his profession and his part of the team. All of that made what happened Sunday extremely difficult. He ached at the opportunity lost. He hurt for what he and his teammates failed to do.

Make no mistake, he acted put together on the outside, but he was tore up on the inside.

“There’s no one that’s going to beat himself up more than Wes,” said Katie Taylor-rivers, the executive director of Welker’s foundation.

A tough night for Welker made for a rough morning for Taylor-rivers and everyone else in his hometown who knows him well.

“He’s a perfectionist,” she said after a late-night return to Oklahoma City from Indianapolis and the Super Bowl. “He’s worked so hard. And you can tell him over and over again — ‘You’re a miracle ... coming back from the knee surgery, being in the NFL’ — but there’s nothing you can say to make it better.”

There may be no words right now that would console Welker, but what he said Sunday night was a reminder to all. Even when times are tough and criticism is flowing and you made seven catches in the biggest game of your life but everyone will remember you for the one that you didn’t quite snag, how you react is still up to you.

Call Wes Welker what you will after the Super Bowl, but I’m going to go with classy.