Tenorio: Welker-less Pats still have enough in the tank to solve Ravens

When Wes Welker fell to the ground at Reliant Stadium on Sunday, the groans from New England Patriots fans reverberated all the way from Central Square in Lynn to the Canadian border. Just like that, Patriots Nation wrote off its pro football team for the playoffs. Might as well forget about the weekend wild-card game against the Baltimore Ravens and start following Adrian Beltre’s welcome to Fenway Park.Once again, Pats fans have shown a genius for overreacting. Losing Welker will hurt the team against the Ravens next Sunday. But based on my impressions from covering the Patriots in their 27-21 regular-season win over the Ravens in October, the Pats still have enough depth on both offense and defense to win their playoff rematch.Let’s start with the ground game, where the Pats have one of their deepest (if not most prolific) teams since the record-busting rushers of the late 1970s. Fred Taylor (2 touchdowns) and BenJarvus Green-Ellis both ran well in the regular-season finale against the Houston Texans. Sammy Morris took the ball in for a score against Baltimore when the teams first met. Kevin Faulk finished second on the Pats in rushing yards (335). The team leader, Laurence Maroney, has been in pigskin purgatory ever since he fumbled against the Jacksonville Jaguars ? but coach Bill Belichick should bring him back for Sunday.In the passing attack, the diminutive Welker leaves a void as big as the Square One Mall. He caught a franchise-record 123 passes. Against the Ravens in the regular season, he was Tom Brady’s top target, hauling in six catches for 48 yards. But the Pats have other options. Nine players caught passes against Baltimore the first time around. In the regular season, Welker finished with the most catches on the team, but Randy Moss had the most touchdowns – 13 to Welker’s four. Ravens coach John Harbaugh told the Baltimore Sun that rookie Julian Edelman was “kind of the Wes Welker clone.” Benjamin Watson, meanwhile, must show that his five touchdown receptions – second on the team – were no fluke.On defense, the Patriots did a creditable job against Baltimore in October, containing the vaunted running attack of Ray Rice and Willis McGahee and forcing quarterback Joe Flacco to throw the ball 47 times. At the end of the game, the Pats applied enough pressure to keep Baltimore from a game-winning score, with Mark Clayton dropping Flacco’s fourth-down pass to seal the win.We’ve heard a lot about how the Baltimore defense is supposed to be ferocious enough to tame the monsters in “Avatar,” and I saw a bit of that in October. Terrell Suggs and Jarret Johnson each had one sack. When Suggs sacked Brady, he forced the QB to fumble. Teammate Dwan Edwards recovered for a Ravens touchdown.Tough defense or not, the Ravens were still just barely a winning team this season (9-7). After winning their first three games, they went 6-7 the rest of the way. They didn’t look too dominant in their season finale against the lowly Oakland Raiders. Kicker Billy Cundiff missed two field goals and the Ravens only won by eight points.On Sunday, I see Brady, Moss and Maroney all solving the Baltimore defense as the Patriots still have enough to win a close one, 21-14.Rich Tenorio is an Item sports copy editor.