MIAMI — It was the kind of hit that makes the highlight films.

The kind that hurts just to watch.

The kind that makes you wince, but that you can’t look away from.

Which is to say it was the kind that makes the guy who absorbs it wonder what planet he’s on.

That was the kind of hit 6-foot-2, 250-pound Channing Crowder put on 5-foot-9 (with lifts in his cleats), 185-pound (tops) Wes Welker late in the first quarter.

Pats quarterback Matt Cassel, scrambling away from pressure, had spotted Welker a few yards upfield and flipped a short pass to him. A split-second after the ball arrived, so did Crowder.

Looking more like a runaway locomotive than a playful Dolphin, the big Miami linebacker absolutely leveled New England’s diminutive, but dangerous, wide receiver.

Welker lay on the ground for a minute or so, looking up at stars in the afternoon sky, then wobbled to the sidelines.

Three plays later, he was back in the game, catching another pass, for a 7-yard gain. He went on to make 8 catches, for 120 yards, including a career-long, 64-yarder in which he tip-toed along the sidelines like a tightrope walker, somehow managing to stay in bounds when it seemed he had to go out.

 It was yet another example of just how determined the little guy is to stay on the field.

 “He’s a tough kid,” Pats coach Bill Belichick said. “Most of the time, he seems to manage to miss those solid blows. He gets them when they’re kind of glancing, or he squirts under them. But, every once in a while, they tag him.

 “But he tends to bounce right back. That’s pretty impressive. He’s smaller than I am, and you know those hits have got to hurt. But he’s tough.”

“I just had the breath knocked out of me,” Welker said. “It’s like when you get slapped around by your older brother. You get back up and come back with a pool stick.”