Welker, Vollmer will be big decisions in 2013 – Sports – The Boston Globe

Good Sunday notes from Bedard on the upcoming offseason situations the Pats will face.

What will complicate these negotiations is the fact that Welker (David Dunn) and Vollmer (Ben Dogra) are represented by two of the best agents in the business. They will be looking for top dollar and will not be pushed around by the Patriots, as some other agents are. The Patriots can retain both. One can get the franchise tag ($11.4 million for Welker because he was franchised last season, $9.66 million for Vollmer), but they’d have to overpay the other to keep him from testing the waters. It’s very unlikely that either will stay for a hometown discount. The Patriots likely can’t justify spending more than half their remaining cap money on Welker, especially since if they gave him the $22 million last offseason, he’d be here for another three years and would have saved them about $14 million in cap money in ’12 and ’13 alone.