INDIANAPOLIS -- Antrel Rolle reached his Wes Welker limit four days before the Super Bowl.

Not that Welker did anything to the Giants safety/slot cornerback from Miami and the University of Miami. He speaks highly of Rolle. But Rolle already had gotten sick (and tired) of talking about New England’s slot receiver, the NFL’s leading receiver this season.

“I’m not speaking on Wes Welker, [Rob] Gronkowski or those guys any more,” Rolle said Wednesday. “I’ve given them all the compliments they’re going to get from me, and that’s it. Let’s get the game on, and I’m ready.”

Welker didn’t just lead the NFL in receptions over No. 2, Atlanta’s Roddy White (122 to 100). He scored a career high nine touchdowns, had 21 catches of more than 20 yards and four catches of more than 40 yards. Welker moves the chains — a career-high 77 catches for first downs, tying White and Detroit’s Calvin Johnson for the league lead.

If third down’s the money down for quarterbacks, Welker is Tom Brady’s ATM, just as slot receiver Victor Cruz is for Giants quarterback Eli Manning. (Cruz actually caught one more third-down pass than Welker, 27 to 26.)

And with Welker’s contract up after this season, Brady said Thursday, “I hope he’s back. He certainly deserves it.”

The Giants know Welker well. He had nine catches for 136 yards in the team’s regular-season meeting. Back in 2007, Welker caught 11 passes for 122 yards in the regular-season finale that the Patriots won and 11 for 103 in the Super Bowl that the Patriots lost. The only place the Giants stopped him consistently was the red zone: Welker scored no touchdowns.

The responsibility for keeping that going falls to whomever the Giants put at the slot cornerback position — Rolle, Corey Webster or someone else.

Former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison, now an analyst for NBC Sports, calls the slot corner position the toughest to play because there’s no sideline to use as an extra defender. Agreeing with that opinion is Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell, who said the timing between Brady and Welker on the option routes is just one of the things that makes them tough to stop.

“You never know when he’s running a route,” Fewell said. “He comes off hard and fast when he’s blocking also. That in itself is a difficult thing. Most receivers when they’re blocking, they kind of jog off, kind of [fake] it. With Wes, you never know whether it’s a run or a pass.”

Former NFL wide receiver Cris Collinsworth marvels at Welker’s ability to go hard not just every play, but also in all parts of his routes.

“I’ve never seen a guy who can run beyond full speed for him and get in and out of his cuts without having to slow down and hesitate. Most guys have to make a decisive change of speed to make a short break. But he’s running as hard as he can possibly run and he’s in and out of the break. …There’s almost no way to stay up with him,” Collinsworth said.

“People want to talk about, ‘Well, he runs whatever he does in the 40.’ Whatever it is, it’s nowhere near what Randy Moss did. But, if you ran a 40-yard dash that went down 20 yards and turned left for 20 yards, Randy Moss couldn’t get within 10 yards of this guy.”

Another player-turned-TV guy, Hall of Famer Michael Irvin of the NFL Network, gives Welker the highest compliment.

“They say, ‘This guy is an elite receiver,’ ” Irvin said, imitating the other side of a hypothetical discussion of wide receivers. “How many catches did he have? ‘Well, he caught 70 balls.’ Well, Wes caught over 100! What’s a receiver’s job? It’s to catch passes. Catch touchdowns, catch first downs. He does it in the slot. That’s a place I wasn’t able to do it. So I’m not going to slight a man when he’s doing something I couldn’t do. I’m going to give him credit.

“It’s a different place when you’re playing in the slot,” Irvin said. “He has to be on the same page, verbatim, with the quarterback all the time. It’s not just physical, running motion. It’s playing the game shoulders up that gets you open. I think that’s where all the great ones play the game.”