Wes Welker's drop: No need to blame

Super Bowl XLVI- astrolame- Flickr

The New England Patriots’ loss to the New York Giants was affected by Wes Welker’s drop, yet who was to blame: Tom Brady or Welker? It really does not matter, because a single person is not responsible for a team’s loss, and plays like this are inevitable in a game like the Super Bowl.

A game’s outcome is never caused by one play, but is instead the end result of all the players’ performance. Certainly one play is not the factor that decides which team will win. As Brady said in a San Francisco Chronicle article, "You win as a team, and you lose as a team."

Neither, though can Welker’s drop be called the turning point of the game. It could have been Aaron Hernandez’s or Rob Gronkowski’s dropped passes that changed the game.

Placing the blame on one person does not help the team. Instead, it discourages players and hurts the team as a whole.

A victory or defeat is collective and the whole team shares in the result, whether it is a win or loss.