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Patriots not having luck with high profile former foes – Metro US

Patriots not having luck with high profile former foes

Some of the most curious moves the Patriots have made in the past few months have involved high profile former foes.

The Twitter phenom formerly known as Chad Ochocinco made headlines once upon a time for kicking field goals against New England. He publicly praised Bill Belichick, once a very taboo thing to do, live on NFL Films cameras. This eventually led to a job with the Pats.

But after Ochocinco went through a dismal year in 2011 with only 15 catches and one touchdown, he was quickly dismissed this offseason.

While Ochocinco’s former team, the Bengals, weren’t exactly arch-rivals of the Patriots, the Colts were … for a very long time, if you remember correctly.

Several Pats left Foxboro for Indy over the years (Adam Vinatieri and Dan Klecko were two that hurt the most), but it was rare that transactions occurred the other way.

That is until this year.

New England brought in both wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez and running back Joseph Addai. Both players were thought to once be the young guns that would lead the Peyton Manning-led Colts to a second Super Bowl trophy. But both fizzled out over the past few seasons due to injuries and general lack of production.

The thought in Foxboro in March was that both had something left in the tank. Not exactly. Gonzalez was cut in May and is still looking for work. Addai was cut Wednesday and with Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen ready to shoulder the load at running back, there just wasn’t much room.

So was Bill Belichick just toying with the former Sons of Polian? Probably not, but who knows?

The path to success in Foxboro has long been one of the home-grown variety. It looks like it will stay that way for a while.