FOXBORO — Patriots coach Bill Belichick officially closed the door on the Joey Galloway era in New England yesterday afternoon.

“He’s had a great career, and this is just one of those things that didn’t work out,” Belichick said. “It just didn’t work out.”

Galloway, a healthy scratch the last three weeks, had struggled to get on the same page with quarterback Tom Brady. He had seven catches for 67 yards in his three games with the Patriots, but never appeared completely comfortable in the New England passing game, one predicated on a series of timing patterns.

“It just didn’t work out for us, unfortunately,” Belichick said when asked about Galloway. “But sometimes, that happens.”

Galloway, who was signed by the Patriots as a free agent on March 19, started his career with New England as the likeliest candidate to take over the role of No. 3 receiver, a position that had been filled capably the last couple of seasons by Jabar Gaffney and Donte Stallworth. His veteran savvy and extensive background led many to believe that he would be a good fit with the Patriots offense.

And despite the fact that the 37-year-old struggled through the preseason (where he had six catches for 49 yards), it appeared his position was safe when New England cut Greg Lewis — another candidate for the same role — shortly before the start of the regular season.

But things didn’t get any better for Galloway, who went without a catch in the season opener against Buffalo. He rebounded briefly in Week 2 against the Jets, where he finished with five catches for 53 yards, including a 19-yard reception. At that point, there was a sense that Galloway might have started to mesh with the quarterback. In a rare Q&A with reporters in the days following his performance against the Jets, he sounded optimistic about how things were going.

“In this league, you play against a different defense every single week, and there’s going to be weeks when things look good, and there’s going to be weeks where things don’t look good,” Galloway said. “And that doesn’t mean that a quarterback and a receiver are not in sync. It just means that sometimes you’re going against a different look and a different scheme.

“I’ve been on a few different teams now, so I know that there’s a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of learning to do when you come into a new system.”

Saying he came to New England in large part for the opportunity to work with Brady, the veteran receiver sounded optimistic when asked about his relationship with the quarterback, and was hopeful they could turn things around.

“It’s been a learning curve. It’s taken time. We have a lot of work to do,” Galloway said of his relationship with Brady. “We’ve worked extremely hard — we do every day. And we communicate a lot. As time goes on, we’ll get better.”

But he bottomed out a week after that against the Falcons, his last game in a New England uniform. Without Wes Welker in the lineup, he had just two catches for 14 yards in the win, and drew a mock sarcastic cheer from the Gillette Stadium crowd after one of his receptions. On one sequence, Brady found Galloway all alone in the back of the end zone, but the touchdown was negated when Galloway failed to get his feet inbounds.

On Tuesday, the Patriots also officially cut ties with tight end Michael Matthews. A blocking tight end acquired by New England from the New York Giants on Sept. 5 in a trade, the 6-foot-4, 270-pounder was originally signed by the Giants as a rookie free agent on May 8, 2007, out of Georgia Tech. Matthews played in three games for the Patriots this season as a reserve tight end and on special teams. Belichick said the Patriots will not lose the 2011 draft pick in the  trade — it was a conditional pick, and the conditions weren’t met, Belichick said.

“I thought he came in and did a good job for us,” Belichick said of Matthews. “He came in late, started learning the stuff from the start of the regular season after missing training camp — being with the Giants — and we just kind of decided to move on in a little different direction.”