In his book Play It Like You Mean It, Jets head coach Rex Ryan writes that Patriots receiver Wes Welker apologized to him and his wife in Hawaii for his press conference before the AFC divisional playoff game in which he made 11 references to feet. According to one person who witnessed the interaction, though, the encounter was a lot more memorable than the version in Ryan's book.
Here's the excerpt:
A couple of other things happened during the week. Of course, there was the stuff that New England wide receiver Wes Welker said about me and my wife. Look, it didn't bother me, I'm not going to let that affect me. But it did get Welker benched for the first series by Belichick, so I was fine with that. With Welker, there's a lot of good-natured talk that goes back and forth. I know that. He talks to us, and we talk to him about how we're going to knock him around all game. When I went to Hawaii, the kid came up and apologized to me and my wife. No hard feelings.
This meeting apparently occurred poolside at the Ihilani Hotel in Oahu, where a bunch of players and personnel were relaxing. According to our witness, Rex, who was a little jittery about being in public with Michelle for the first time since we posted their foot-fetish videos, saw Welker hanging out with some guys and said to his wife: "Look, honey, you remember Wes Welker? Let's go say hi to him." Whereupon Rex grabbed Michelle and walked over to Welker and said, "Hey, Wes. How are you? You remember my beautiful wife, don't you?" Welker did, of course, and he quickly apologized.
We've asked the Jets to contact Ryan about this version, but they've yet to return a phone call. But our source says, "Plenty of people saw it and said it was the coolest thing they'd ever seen — it was the perfect way to defuse that uncomfortable situation."
PHOTO: Darryl B