Soren Petro talked with New England Patriots WR Wes Welker for a few minutes recently, mostly about Kansas City Chiefs QB Matt Cassel. Here's some of what Welker had to say to Soren Petro:

Everyone is very thrilled that we took your quarterback from you, well traded for him. Have you talked to him since the contract reports?

We stay in contact on a regular basis. He's definitely excited and ready to get to work. He's a tough competitor, hard worker, the whole bit. KC got a great player and a great guy.

When Matt Cassel came into that first game, what was the atmosphere like?

Everyone was trying to keep their heads up and take care of their responsibilities. Matt came in and made some nice plays.

When did you see Cassel finally settle in?

The Indy game, even though we lost that game, we were definitely in it. Just the fire and how into the game he was, he was ready to go. He came a long way in that game.

That was Week 9. Did you watch him mature in the huddle?

Absolutely. He's always had that personality, that outgoing personality. I think it took him a bit to get his confidence going. Once he got that, it became a lot easier for him. Towards the later part of the season, he really turned it on. He worked his tail off, day in and day out.

On Scott Pioli....What is the atmosphere that you saw when you came to New England? What makes the combo of Pioli/Belichick different than other teams?

From a team to team basis, it's all pretty much the same. They've done a great job finding the little things that you need to do to get better. They are very detailed type people. Scott did a great job for us, very good on the personnel side and Bill on the coaching side. He did a great job getting Matt signed up this year.

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Listen to the entire podcast here. Anyone else keep seeing this "hard worker" tag keep coming up when talking about Matt Cassel? Gotta love that.

H/T to ArrowSpread in the FanShots for the link.