Bill Belichick wrapped up his day-after conference call a short while ago, and touched on a number of topics. Among them: his respect for Chad Ochocinco and his stance on allowing players to use Twitter...

Belichick has spoken of his fondness for The Receiver Formerly Known as Chad Johnson in the past, and the mutual admiration the two have came to light again when Ochocinco roamed the Gillette Stadium field after the final gun looking for Belichick to shake his hand.

Asked if his respect for Ochocinco is as high as the player's is for him, Belichick said, "Yeah, absolutely. I remember when I worked Chad out on the USC campus, we had a great visit and workout, and I've stayed in touch with him, situations like last night when we play him talk before the game, (or at) the Pro Bowl a few years ago. He's a fun loving guy, very competitive, he challenges guys in every situation. I love his competitiveness, and he's a hard guy to compete against. I don't know if you could say we're alike, but yeah, I love his enthusiasm for the game, but don't like playing against him because he's such a good athlete. Didn't think after last night's game I'd be saying it was his kick that made the difference."

Over the last month or so, there's been a lot of debate about when players should be able to use Twitter, a discussion spurred in part of Ochocinco's assertion that he would Tweet during games. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently ruled that players will not be allowed to Tweet within 90 minutes of kickoff, but the Patriots players were advised to avoid Tweeting a few months ago. Laurence Maroney and Vince Wilfork, who do have accounts through the popular service, have not posted any tweets since about 10 days before training camp began.

When he was asked for his stance on Twitter, Belichick said any team rules are kept in-house.

"I think anytime you have a group of people, you have to have some type of rules or policies to manage a large group of people so you can be consistent and work together toward a common goal. All the rules we have for that are internal; they're not something we talk about outside the team. Right now my biggest focus is getting the team to play better, do things better fundamentally , do things better situationally, execute the plays we need to make to win."

The Pats' PR staff does maintain a Twitter account to give media and fans information.

As for his team's play against Cincinnati, Belichick felt the defense got some good pressure on the Bengals' quarterbacks but that it could have been more consistent and more frequent; said rookie QB Brian Hoyer was taken from the game because he was shaken up; Joey Galloway is "definitely" making good progress; and that Shawn Crable's snaps were very limited both because of some injury soreness as well as the opportunities that were presented.