In a telephone interview with The Boston Herald's Karen Guregian, Patriots running back Laurence Maroney said that the coming season will be the one in which he must silence everyone who has called him a first-round-draft bust.

"I feel like this has to be my year," he said. "There's no other way around it. I just feel like I have to be better this year. ... I was a first-rounder with a lot of expectations. I know how good I can be. I know my worth to the team. ... This is the year I really have to prove to the fans, to the coaches, to the world I can be this running back, I can be the guy for [Bill] Belichick and the Patriots."

Maroney, whose career has been limited by injuries ever since he was selected in 2006 with the Patriots' first-round draft pick, is co-chairman with his mother of Saturday's Boston March for Babies, which will benefit the March of Dimes.