A Bear necessity: Patriots need to step it up on the road

While they're unbeaten at home, the Patriots have suffered a pair of double-digit losses on the road. Next stop for the 4-2 Pats is Chicago's Soldier Field for a game with the 3-2 Bears.

FOXBORO – To this point in the season, they have been little more than a speed bump on the road.

Some might even call them road kill.

While 4-0 at home, winning close games (27-20 over Houston and 43-40 over Kansas City), a rout (38-7 over Miami) and one game that fell somewhere in between (38-24 over Indianapolis; a game in which they saw a 21-point halftime lead trimmed to seven in the fourth quarter), the 2018 Patriots have yet to even come close to winning in two tries on the road, losing by double digits at Jacksonville, 31-20, and at Detroit, 26-10.

Now, Chicago awaits, the 3-2 Bears hosting the 4-2 Patriots at Soldier Field this afternoon.

"We have a huge challenge this week of just playing well and trying to get a win on the road," safety Devin McCourty said. "We just haven’t done it, and I think when you’re on the road and you fall behind (the Patriots fell 21 points behind the Jaguars in the third quarter and were down 10 against the Lions at the half), now it’s just the energy picks up, it’s like everything’s against you and you’re just fighting uphill.

"So, that’s something we talked about, getting off to a fast start across the board – offense, defense, kicking game. We feel like that’s key for us if we want to go out there and play well in Chicago. It’s not falling behind 14-3, 10-zip and then just trying to play a whole different game. So, we just need to focus and do that Sunday."

While the Bears haven’t defeated a team that currently sports a winning record, their two losses – and the manner in which those games unfolded – show they are not all that far away from being 5-0.

The Bears couldn’t make a 20-point third-quarter stand up, allowing Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to stage one of his patented fourth-quarter comebacks, in a 24-23 season-opening Sunday night loss at Green Bay.

An 11-point third-quarter lead wasn’t enough in a 31-28 loss in overtime at Miami last Sunday afternoon, Jason Sanders’ 47-yard, game-winning field goal as time expired in OT coming two minutes after Bears kicker Cody Parker followed a conservative run call on third-and-four from the 35 by missing wide to the right on what would have been a game winner from 53 yards two minutes earlier.

If nothing else, though, this Bears team heads into this afternoon’s game with the Patriots with experience in rebounding from a hard-to-swallow setback.

During a conference call with the New England media at midweek, Matt Nagy, the Bears’ first-year head coach, said he was hopeful his team would react to its current situation “just like we responded after a tough loss to the Packers in Week 1 in the second half.”

The Bears rebounded from that loss by winning three straight – 24-17 over Seattle, 16-14 at Arizona and 48-10 over Tampa Bay – heading into Hard Rock Stadium last week.

“I have all the trust in our players and our coaches,” said Nagy. “We’ve got a bunch of good guys that care about each other. There’s no finger pointing or anything like that going on. It’s just good people trying to play football.”

As for the Patriots, while inconsistent the past two games, they’ve been good enough to bounce back from a 1-2 start to rattle off consecutive wins over Miami, Indy and KC to improve to 4-2 and assume their customary spot atop the AFC East (by virtue of their head-to-head win over the Dolphins, who are also 4-2).

Since routing the Fins in what was easily their finest hour, the Pats have had to overcome inconsistencies on defense the past two games and deficiencies in kickoff coverage, most notably Tremon Smith’s 97-yard, fourth-quarter return for the Chiefs last week. Allowing 27.4 yards per return, the Patriots rank 30th in the NFL in kickoff coverage, an uncustomary position for a team that has always stressed special teams play under Bill Belichick.

On the plus side, the Patriots did come home to average 39.7 points per game in the three games they’ve played since their former defensive coordinator, Matt Patricia, and his Lions defense limited them to 10 in their most recent game on the road.

“I wouldn’t really say (the offense has) changed, we’re really working hard and we’re getting better,” wide receiver Chris Hogan said when asked about the improvement. “I think that’s always the focus at the start of the year. It’s never going to be perfect and there’s always going to be room for improvement and there’s going to be room for improvement for the entire year, but we’re continuing to make strides in all areas offensively and just focused on improvement and improving every single work.”