Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had plenty to celebrate after he beat Brian Urlacher on a key third-down scramble. AP

We're not here to pick on the Patriots alone, however. The first-place Bears, supposedly the class of the NFC at 9-2, were just as sloppy if not more so. Besides the four turnovers, Chicago had a field goal blocked, a punt partially blocked, and gave up 354 yards offense to New England, the first team to crack 300 against the Bears this season.

If this was a potential Super Bowl preview, as some had opined in the pre-game buildup, another Blunder Bowl in Miami (as Super Bowl V was known in 1971) looms as a distinct possibility. On this day, clearly neither team disabused us of the notion that they might not measure up to the league's elite teams.

"We had opportunities,'' said Bears coach Lovie Smith, whose team entered Sunday having defeated just two opponents with winning records at the beginning of Week 12 (Seattle and the Giants). "Offensively it's tough to win when you have four turnovers, it's as simple as that. Defensively, we talk a lot about takeaways. We were able to get five, which is big, but we didn't do enough.''

Smith's biggest concern has to be the state of Grossman's faltering game. In his first five games this season, Grossman had just five turnovers. In his most recent six games, he has coughed up the ball a whopping 19 times. Included in that stretch were six-turnover games for Chicago against Arizona (a win) and Miami (a loss). The entire rest of the NFL entered Week 12 with just two other six-turnover games.

In his post-game news conference, Smith felt compelled to twice re-affirm that Grossman was his starting quarterback going forward, an unusual development on a team that's 9-2 and seemingly headed for the NFC's top seed and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. But that's where things stand in Chicago, and with Grossman, whose status at least vaguely resembles quarterback Kyle Orton's situation in Chicago about this time last year. At this rate, Grossman could get to the playoffs and the bench at roughly the same time.

"We just didn't finish our drives and take care of the football and that's a bad combination,'' said Grossman, who finished 15 of 34 for 176 yards, with those three interceptions and a paltry passer rating of 23.7. "I thought we held our own from the 10 to the 10 (yard line). Our defense took the ball and did a great job of that, but we didn't do such a great job.''

Great jobs were in fairly short supply Sunday afternoon in Foxboro, where the Patriots' new FieldTurf playing surface performed better than either team. The footing was so good for a change that even the relatively immobile Brady busted a move, juking past Bears middle linebacker Brian Urlacher for a key 11-yard scramble on third-and-9 on New England's game-winning fourth-quarter touchdown drive.

"It was just an uncoordinated stutter step,'' quipped Brady.

We're pretty sure he was talking about his big run, not the game. But whatever. It kind of applied to both.

"We were just fortunate to win this game,'' Patriots tight end Daniel Graham said. "We know we've got to play so much better if we want to get where we want to go. But a sloppy win is better than a great loss, and I'll take it every time. We needed this win.''

In the worst way.