Rich on the Biggest Questions He Has for the Patriots Following Their TNF Loss to the Bears

The Patriots left Chicago at 4-3 with a short list of problems, and Rich went straight to the top of it.

"Where's the run game? Where does it exist? It doesn't," Rich said to Chris, the show's resident Patriots fan. "Drake Maye's their run game."

The counterpoint from the crew was the offensive line, which is down to third and fourth-string players. Rich granted the point, then noted that plenty of other teams are in the same spot and still find a way. "It's a problem," he said.

A late touchdown that told the story

The numbers on Thursday night made his case. Rhamondre Stevenson ran for 22 yards. He was the Patriots' leading receiver with 93 yards, but 48 of those came on one play at the very end of the first half.

That sequence started with Chicago. The Patriots, Rich said, "had their backs broken on third down over and over again" because Caleb Williams was unstoppable, and then Ben Johnson dialed up a screen on third-and-17 that popped into the end zone. Just when that looked like the back-breaker, New England flipped one to Stevenson and he went half the field for a touchdown with no time left.

Rich's reaction was pure fantasy manager. "That's a fantasy stat padder," he said, lamenting that he had benched Stevenson. "Now I'm really lamenting that I benched him because he's in the end zone."

The crew also wondered where TreVeyon Henderson was. Nobody had a good answer.

Maye was spectacular, again

The Patriots' other touchdown came from Maye, who kept every body part off the ground long enough to reach the ball across the goal line. His line was strong: 24 of 31 for 321 yards and three total touchdowns, two through the air and one on the ground.

"That should give you a win more often than not," Rich said. "But that one interception just jumps out at you."

It was a red zone pick in the end zone, and Rich said it changed everything late. Without it, New England wouldn't have been chasing touchdowns at the end and could have played for a field goal to tie.

Maye owned it afterward. "It definitely was a huge point in the game," he said. "Those plays that can swing the game, can impact the game, and that was definitely one of them right there. I wish I definitely had that one back."

Rich also wants more help around his quarterback. "We got to get A.J. Brown going. We got to get the run game going," he said. "Otherwise, Drake Maye is going to have to play hero ball all the time." He believed Brown was interfered with on one deep ball that Maye put right in his hands.

The good news, Rich said, is that the Maye blues of the first three weeks are history and the fumbles have gone away. The catch is that about once a week he will still throw "a meatball sub, to use the Brady phrase."

The schedule from here

Rich said repeating last season will take quite a bit now, and that this was always going to be a harder year. Last year's schedule "did not call for visits to Chicago with Caleb Williams playing out of his skull."

Still, he sees plenty of winnable games. Next up is a trip to Miami. Then a game against Green Bay in Munich, a bye, and a Sunday night visit to the Chargers. Buffalo comes to New England, a series Rich called "kind of crazy, it's a coin flip." Then come a Thursday night home date with Minnesota, a Monday night trip to Kansas City and a home game with Denver.

"There's a 10, 11-win season in the ether," Rich said. The crew agreed the Patriots are still a playoff team, and Rich added that beating Buffalo at home could still mean a division title and a home playoff game. "But I think it's going to be a tougher road to hoe than last year."

He also defended the Patriots' defense, calling it better than the names suggest. The 30 points it allowed came with an asterisk. As the crew pointed out, everyone is giving up 30 to the Bears.

The real headline

That was where Rich landed. The Bears look super, and if Williams stays healthy, they are, as TJ likes to say, a problem.

The night did carry bad news for Chicago, with reports that Cole Kmet suffered a serious knee injury and could miss significant time.

Even so, Rich couldn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth. "Offensively, the Bears have one of the top offenses in the league," he said, "and I don't think I've ever said those words on planet Earth until just now."