Dolphins vs. Patriots: Tom Brady Needs to Feed the Ball to Wes Welker

Get the ball to your playmakers—it's that simple.

Tom Brady has been doing a phenomenal job of distributing the ball to his playmakers this season as Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez are all having superb years. 

In this week's upcoming game—a battle on Christmas Eve with the New England Patriots hosting the Miami Dolphins—one thing that Brady and the Pats offensive attack needs to do is feed the ball to Welker. 

When these two divisional foes met all the way back in Week 1, Welker had a field day as he reeled in eight passes for a whopping 160 yards and two touchdowns. 

Brady continually found matchup problems as he and Welker led the Patriots to a stellar 38-24 victory. 

One play that really stuck out to me was midway through the third quarter with the game tied at 14-14. The Patriots were able to score with Brady connecting on a short three-yard touchdown. 

New England comes out in a traditional spread, shotgun formation with Welker in the slot. The immediate pre-snap read is that Miami is in man coverage—which means Brady is likely going to throw to Welker no matter what, as he has the advantage. 

At the snap of the ball, Welker explodes off of the line and then plants his foot to gain separation away from the defender. With Welker's crisp cut, Miami's defender is in no-man's land and has already been beaten. 

So what's the result? An easy pitch-and-catch from Brady to Welker. It was very simple, as Brady made a pre-snap read and Welker ran a crisp route. That's all it was. 

This touchdown was just one of two of Welker's and this reception was just one of eight. 

When you look at the Patriots, their key to success isn't too difficult to figure out: Get the ball to the playmakers. 

If Brady and Welker continue their dominance this Saturday against Miami by connecting on many passes and being on the same page, then this game will get really ugly, really fast. 

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