| Some Sunday afternoon odds and ends | 03.14.10 at 1:25 pm ET |
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.

Christopher Price: patriots - Wes Welker runs another reverse - WEEI | Christopher Price http://t.co/ng1aNROF via @WEEI 22 hours ago
Christopher Price: @RumfordJohnny Thought about picking up the Deford book the other day. Let me know what you think. 12:58 PM May 20, 2012
Christopher Price: patriots - Welker backtracks on contract comments - WEEI | Christopher Price http://t.co/ng1aNROF via @WEEI 5:05 AM May 20, 2012
Christopher Price: Thanks to @RumfordJohnny @jj73cuda and @SteveB7SFG for the nice words. 4:56 AM May 20, 2012
Christopher Price: WW: "You can get caught up in it and react silly sometimes, but you know what? We’re getting paid to play a game we love." 4:47 PM May 19, 2012
Christopher Price: WW on #leapoffaith: "Probably not the wisest choice of words. But sometimes you react on emotion once & a while, it gets the best of you." 4:47 PM May 19, 2012
Christopher Price: Welker: "I’m franchised for the year, and I’m completely happy with that. I’m completely OK with it." 4:46 PM May 19, 2012
Christopher Price: Welker: “I’m not frustrated whatsoever. I’m ... I know the words that came out made it seem that way, but I’m not frustrated at all." 4:45 PM May 19, 2012
Christopher Price: Welker: “That was probably a bad choice of words, saying they had gotten worse." 4:44 PM May 19, 2012
Christopher Price: Welker: I'm 'completely happy' with situation #Patriots #NFL http://t.co/lMU3pPtq via @WEEI 4:44 PM May 19, 2012
Christopher Price: Welker appeared to dial back his statements from the other day. Said he will report when OTAs start on Monday. 3:10 PM May 19, 2012
Christopher Price: Welker says that using the word "worse" in relation to the contract talks was "a bad choice of words." 3:09 PM May 19, 2012

2012 PATRIOTS DRAFT PICKS

2012 NFL DRAFT

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