Here are a few Patriots-related notes for a rainy Sunday afternoon:

•It’s been covered a little previously, but the NFL Player Development Department has now officially awarded the Patriots with this year’s Outstanding Overall Player Development Award. At the annual meetings last week, awards were given to the NFL Player Development departments in the areas of financial education, continuing education, career development and life skills, with the Outstanding Overall Player Development Award honoring the club that excels in programming in all four areas of player development.

In addition to their financial education, the NFL Player Development Department identified a few of the Patriots’ recent initiatives as strengths of the program, including a safe boating program that was designed to raise awareness of risks after the boating tragedy that claimed the lives of two NFL players in the Gulf of Mexico last year. The team was also credited with their creative implementation of life skills training sessions. Celtics coach Doc Rivers was a guest speaker at one of the sessions this year.

•The next time we stop by Ty Warren’s locker, we’re going to make it a point to ask him about his fishing expertise. It was called to our attention here that the defensive lineman set a Massachusetts mark this season when he landed a 61-pound, 3-ounce mahi-mahi dolphin fish at Vetch Canyon in August. (For more on his mark, check this out.)

•We know that Bill Belichick and Tony LaRussa are pals, and by the sounds of this account from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the two spent part of the day Saturday hanging out before the Cardinals-Astros game in Jupiter, Fla.

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