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New England Patriots Links 7/31/11 - Weekend Update Edition

By Marima

Bill Belichick addresses the media following the official completion of the Haynesworth and Ochocinco trades.

The trades for both Chad [Ochocino] and Albert [Haynesworth] are complete, so they're New England Patriots now. Both of them came down pretty quickly. With the rules, obviously, we couldn't enter into any conversations about those. But Mike Shanahan and I had some conversations there late one night and it all kind of came together pretty quickly. And so we had to get a few things worked out and so we did that and consummated the trade with Washington. And I spoke with Marvin [Lewis] and Mike Brown and eventually we got things worked out with Cincinnati as they were reporting to camp, before Chad reported there, so he was able to come here and we were able to get that finished. Those players are here, they obviously have a lot of catching up to do. We're excited to have them. They‘ve got a lot of work to do in terms of learning our system and us figuring out exactly how they'll fit in and what their roles will be and so forth, but they've both been very productive in the league as we all know. We hope they'll be able to contribute for us this year, but we'll just have to see how it goes and take it as it comes along.

Mike Reiss notes Deion Branch has found Chad Ochocinco a quick learner in adapting to what the Patriots do.

"I think he's picked up a lot of things," Branch said after Sunday morning's walkthrough. "The stuff they've thrown at him, I think he's done a great job of picking it up. The stuff that he's sliding on, we're going to do our best to pick him up when we can, and when he needs it. So far he hasn't been needing it and that's a good sign."

Paul Kenyon reports Tom Brady expects the Patriots' new acquisitions to play by Belichick's rules.

"I think coach Belichick sets an expectation for everybody. He doesn’t treat me any different than he treats a rookie who’s coming out here for his second day of practice," Brady said. "He has expectations. Every time we walk in the door he has four things listed and every time we walk out he has four things listed. The most important one is doing our job. "So, when I come in, it’s actually pretty easy. I follow the game plan that he puts up there," he went on. "I think for each guy that comes in, they have to do the same thing. It’s not, ‘Hey Tom has a different set of rules; Wes (Welker) has a different set of rules. Everyone has the same set of rules."

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