A day after saying there are "9.5 million reasons" he won't be missing any regular season games in pursuit of a new contract with the New England Patriots, Wes Welker has signed his franchise tender, according to a report from Greg Bedard of the Boston Globe, which Welker later confirmed via Twitter.

I signed my tender today. I love the game and I love my teammates! Hopefully doing the right thing gets the right results. #leapoffaith

Welker will be getting a hefty contract from the Patriots so it's no surprise that it's taking a while for the deal to get done. The Patriots franchise tagged Welker and have no plans of parting ways with him. Signing the tender secures him the franchise tag number, which is approximately $9.5 million.

Welker ultimately getting a longterm deal from New England seems inevitable. He went on WEEI in Boston earlier this week and said he really wanted to attend the Patriots offseason program.

"We're still kind of waiting, but I'd really like to be there. I don't know. To say I'm going one way or another right now, I'm not going to say definite or anything like that. But I would definitely like to be at those mini-camps for sure."

Check out the entire interview at Sports Radio Interviews.