By Tom E. Curran
CSNNE.com Patriots InsiderFollow @tomecurran
FOXBORO - Bill Belichick's not going to come out and cite every reason Brandon Meriweather's an ex-Patriot. So he laid off the bad angles, bad tackling, bad off-field decisions and just threw out a general blanket review. "Brandon played a lot of good football for us," Belichick pointed out. "We kept the players this year that we felt would be the best makeup for the 2011 team. It's not the 2009 team. It's the 2011 team. That's the players we selected."Left unsaid but made very clear is that the 2009 version of Meriweather was a far sight better than this one. And that the options the Patriots had to replace Meriweather were good enough to make the move work. "Each year is a new year," Belichick said. "I just don't think you can pick teams, pick your players, based on what's happened in the past. You have to pick them based on what you think is going to happen this year. That's relative to the competition, the makeup of your team, and the player's performance. All those are obviously a part of it."When it comes to the competition, Meriweather didn't have a lot of it. Just Josh Barrett, who hadn't played in a game for the Patriots since being signed while injured in 2010. And Sergio Brown who played 86 plays last season for the Patriots (thanks, Reiss). That Meriweather couldn't beat those guys out is damning. Tom E. Curran can be reached at tcurran@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Tom on Twitter at http:twitter.comtomecurran.