The New England Patriots came up short against the Chicago Bears on Thursday Night Football. They'll have a prime bounce-back opportunity in Week 8 against the lowly Miami Dolphins.

Miami is among the NFL's worst teams this season at 1-5, though it's coming off a somewhat surprising 28-25 road win over the New York Jets. New England, currently second in the AFC East at 4-3, will look to halt its division rival's momentum this Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium.

Where do the Patriots need to improve going forward? And should we expect them to make any big moves ahead of the Nov. 10 NFL trade deadline?

That and much more in a new Patriots mailbag...

Editor's note: Questions have been lightly edited for clarity.

"How do you think the front office will approach the trade deadline with injuries galore across almost every position group? Given the team's expectations, this feels like a crucial juncture for Eliot Wolf. - @jakethami

Hey, Jake. This doesn't feel like the kind of deadline where the Patriots are going to be in the mix to make a major splash. Never say never, in case the right kind of deal presents itself. But there are two things that may prevent them from taking a big swing at the deadline.

First, they've spent a significant amount of cash recently. Like it or not, they're operating on a budget, and Robert Kraft has told us previously that they are essentially a cash-to-cap team over a three-year period. After serious expenditures each of the last two offseasons, a big extension for Christian Gonzalez and an upcoming extension for Drake Maye... adding a player worth millions for the remainder of the season might not be in the cards.

Second, they gave up a significant draft asset in dealing for A.J. Brown, which may make it more difficult for them to part with a draft choice of value in a deadline deal. That's part of what makes Brown's lack of production to this point sting. Not only are you not getting the on-field bang for your buck that you anticipated, but you're also now hampered in your ability to swing future deals because you'd probably like to hold onto whatever valuable draft assets you have after giving Philly your 2028 first.

Unless they want to go full Rams in pursuit of another Super Bowl appearance, it'd behoove the Patriots to hang onto their early (and even early-ish) picks moving forward in order to give themselves a chance at building a young, cost-effective core around the soon-to-be-expensive Maye.

"Do you see the Bears loss as more of a serious systemic problem with the Patriots? Or do you see it as a whole bunch of injuries catching up to us on a short week and that we will be fine after this mini bye?" - @Toxic_LDR

Hard to look at a Thursday Night Football game and make grand proclamations on the essence of what makes this year's iteration of the Patriots this year's iteration of the Patriots. However, the issues that plagued them in Chicago are issues that have plagued them at various points this season: poor tackling, an over-reliance on blitzing, gaps in zone coverage, an inability to create turnovers, an untimely turnover offensively, an underwhelming running game and a lack of production from the receiving corps.

Some of those issues -- the tackling in particular -- may have been exacerbated by the fact that the Patriots were playing on short rest. But all of those issues are worthy of digging into, and the Patriots had an opportunity to dig into them during this mini-bye. We'll see moving forward how many of them are fixable.

A healthier defense should be able to tackle better and play better zone defense -- the Patriots have the worst quarterback rating allowed when in zone (112.2) and the second-highest completion percentage (76.4), per Sports Info Solutions -- but will they suddenly become a turnover-creating machine as the year progresses? Will they be able to get after the quarterback when rushing only four? They rank 28th in pressure percentage (27.0) when not blitzing and 9th in pressure percentage (47.6) when blitzing.

Phil Perry, Tom E. Curran, and Ted Johnson join Michael Holley on Patriots Postgame Live to offer their instant reaction and analysis to the Patriots’ 30-24 loss to the Chicago Bears on Thursday night football.

Offensively, Drake Maye has been much better at taking care of the football over the course of the last month, making his turnover in Chicago feel more like an outlier when considering his most recent stretch of play. Since a blowout loss to the Jaguars in Week 3, Maye has a turnover-worthy play percentage of just 1.2, which is fourth-best in the NFL in that span. The only qualifying quarterback ahead of him with an average depth of target of more than 8.0 yards is Joe Burrow (8.8); Maye's ADOT in that time is 10.6, suggesting he's been careful with the ball while still pushing it down the field regularly. Maye's recent hot stretch (first in EPA per play, second in success rate, second in completion percentage over expected over the last four weeks) has his EPA per dropback all the way up to seventh for the season despite his bumpy first three weeks.

One would think the production from New England's receiving corps will improve as A.J. Brown gets more comfortable in his return from a high-ankle sprain. Assuming the running game will become more productive, however, is harder to do. The Patriots are 20th in the NFL in yards per carry when excluding quarterback runs. They're 26th in both EPA per attempt and success rate on those carries, per Sports Info Solutions.

Can that get better? The Patriots are banged up along the offensive line -- they're 24th in the NFL in yards gained by their backs before contact, per NextGen Stats -- and their backs behind Rhamondre Stevenson haven't shown they're able to create much on their own.

The Patriots are owners of a winning record. A double-digit win season remains very much in play, as does a postseason berth. But if they want to become less Maye-reliant over the course of the rest of the season, they'll need to show they have an ability to fix some of what ailed them in Chicago since those are problems that have persisted to some degree since the season began.

"Why does it feel like every yard of offense has to come from the QB doing something special? Outside of the schemed-up Rhamondre Stevenson TD, where's the YAC? The run game? The WRs? I'm so sick of watching Drake Maye save us every single freaking week. - @RyhanOtmane

They are very much a Maye-driven operation at the moment. And their loss to the Bears was indicative of the fact that just one mistake from the quarterback-- particularly against a good team -- might be too much for the Patriots to survive. Over the last four weeks, he's accounted for 1,328 yards as a passer and runner -- and in two of those weeks he was the team's leading rusher. That total represents 78 percent of the team's total yards in that stretch.

If that number is going to become more balanced, they're going to need more from their running game. That starts with the line, which has struggled to create running room for its backs. Even a veteran back with good vision like Stevenson has not been able to find much running room when given the ball; per NextGen, only 9.1 percent of his yards have come before contact, and his 0.3 yards before contact per carry are the sixth fewest among backs with at least 50 carries. He's been hit behind the line of scrimmage on a whopping 49.4 percent of his carries.

Tom E. Curran and Phil Perry share their grades for Drake Maye and the Patriots wide receiver group through the first seven games of the 2026 season.

"What is it going to take to get A.J. Brown going? Injury or scheme-related?" - @JMEC_94

How about a matchup with the Dolphins? Miami allows more yards per play in the passing game (7.5) than any other team, and their EPA allowed per pass also ranks last (0.28). No team in the NFL has fewer sacks than Miami (six), and they are third-worst in the league in average separation allowed, per NextGen.

"Can you explain the strategy behind playing zone on third-and-11 late in the game? Looked way too easy for Chicago to convert on that down that basically chewed another five minutes off the clock. - @DylanOliver2713

I think it simply gets back to wanting to be multiple with their coverages. If opponents can expect man-to-man every time they get to third down, offenses can cook up man-beating concepts that have the potential to put the Patriots in difficult positions -- specifically if the matchups don't favor them. If Caleb Williams knew he was getting man-to-man on every third down, going to someone like tight end Colston Loveland (a tough matchup for New England when he caught the football) might've been an easy choice.

Turning to man coverage looks over and over and over again is also not a great way to live against athletic quarterbacks. If defensive backs have their backs turned to someone like Williams -- or Malik Willis this week, for that matter -- all he has to do is break the pocket, and that play can turn into an easy explosive.

That being said, given the team's struggles in zone coverage to this point in the season -- those numbers laid out above are glaring -- perhaps after a mini-bye, the Patriots will opt for more man coverage in critical situations since that seems to be what they do best.