Paul Kenyon of the Providence Journal writes about Patriots players helping United Health Care and volunteers build a new playground at Dexter Training Ground in Providence, RI. Deion Branch, Wes Welker, Stephen Gostkowski, Jermaine Cunningham, Vince Wilfork, Gary Guyton, Kevin Faulk, Markell Carter, Devin McCourty, Zoltan Mesko, Kyle Love, Nate Solder, Ryan Wendell, Patrick Chung, Sergio Brown, and Antwaun Molden all were present. "I'm excited to be out here. We've got a beautiful day," Wes Welker said. "We're putting a playground together and we're having some fun doing it."

Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com writes about coach Bill Belichick's recent appearance on Sirius XM NFL Radio's "Movin' The Chains" program with Pat Kirwan and Tim Ryan. Among other topics, Belichick spoke about the Patriots transition from 3-4 to 4-3. "We've played a mixture of odd fronts and even fronts, but I just felt like from a starting point -- given the lack of spring opportunities to practice and meet, and the shortened training camp in terms of actual number of practices -- that from a teaching standpoint we felt like there would be more carryover teaching our base defense and nickel defense really as one front." 

Shalise Manza Young of the Boston Globe writes about the Patriots facing a member of the Ryan family. After facing Rex and the Jets last week, the Patriots will square off against Dallas defe3nsive coordinator Rob Ryan this week. When coach Bill Belichick was asked about the match-up, he replied, "Both are based out of the 3-4 but use a lot of different looks. Both defenses use a lot of multiple defensive backs: four, five, six, seven. There's a lot of carry-over in some of those respects.''

Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com writes about Andre Carter's experience playing against the Dallas Cowboys. Carter spent the last five seasons with the Cowboys NFC East rivals, the Washington Redskins. "Everybody always asks me, being a Washington Redskin and having been in that battle, is that kind of rivalry still in me?" said Carter. "I think my mentality now that I am a Patriot, I think that every week you just have to have that same [even-keeled] mentality, whoever you go up against."

Stan Grossfeld of the Boston Globe writes about the fans at Gillette Stadium. After a Deion Branch touchdown in the second quarter, "A sound meter on the field near the end zone recorded 106.4 decibels. And that was on the open end of the stadium. Tests show that the enclosed side is 10 decibels higher, which would make the noise higher than the 115 decibels the Occupational Safety and Health Administration considers dangerous for any length of time."