FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) – The New England Patriots face some big challenges after their big win over the Chicago Bears.

They must replace injured linebacker Junior Seau, reduce their turnovers and remember to take seriously their next opponent, the Detroit Lions. And the coaches might want to restrain Tom Brady from doing more open-field running and risking injury.

But the quarterback’s limited scrambling skills paid off in Sunday’s 17-13 win over the Chicago Bears.

His 11-yard scamper – “an uncoordinated stutter step is probably what it looked like,” he said – on which he eluded linebacker Brian Urlacher gained a first down and set up the Patriots go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. Urlacher thought Brady would slide and hesitated to avoid being penalized for hitting him as he went down.

“I have a lot of confidence in Tom running the ball. Nobody is going to ever confuse him with Michael Vick or Gale Sayers,” coach Bill Belichick said Monday. “He had a little space and was able to give Brian probably his best move. Maybe it’s his only move.”

Brady has been durable, starting every game since replacing an injured Drew Bledsoe in the second game of the 2001 season, his second in the NFL.

Seau was injury prone the last two seasons with Miami and on Monday the 12-time Pro Bowl player went on injured reserve for the third straight year. He entered Sunday’s game as the Patriots second leading tackler but left with just under nine minutes remaining in the second quarter after tackling Cedric Benson for no gain.

As Seau dove, his outstretched right forearm smacked just above the back of Benson’s right cleat and bent at an awkward angle. Seau then grabbed the area around his right wrist with his left hand. The Patriots did not say whether he had a broken arm or wrist and Belichick gave no details Monday about the injury.

Seau joined New England last August four days after announcing his retirement and has helped them to an 8-3 record and a two-game lead in the AFC East.

“He worked very hard to kind of change his style of play a little bit” when he joined the Patriots, Belichick said. “He’s done a real good job for us.”

Starting outside linebacker Mike Vrabel, who played the inside position last season, replaced Seau inside and Tully Banta-Cain joined Rosevelt Colvin at the outside spots.

“It was kind of ironic,” Belichick said. “Before the game, he (Seau) gave a very emotional speech to the team before we went out onto the field. That’s the kind of guy he is, very unselfish, team oriented, really works hard at the game.”

Tedy Bruschi, the other starting inside linebacker, said, “Junior is a big loss. He is a guy who has come in here and picked up the system real well. He is well liked by a lot of the guys.”

The game was unusually hard fought with the two teams that had allowed the fewest points. New England recovered one fumble and intercepted three passes, all by Asante Samuel, who tied the franchise record for most in a game.

Chicago kept trying to yank the ball free and ended up with three fumble recoveries and two interceptions by Charles Tillman.

“There are a lot of things that we need to do better,” Belichick said. “This isn’t the first team that’s tried to pull the ball out and it won’t be the last either.”

A major reason the Bears are 9-2 is that they lead the NFL in takeaways. Still, the Patriots know they can’t give the ball up that much, even against a weak team like the Lions (2-9).

They have “a lot of speed on defense similar to, really, these other NFC teams that we’ve played, Green Bay, yesterday with Chicago,” Belichick said.

The Patriots beat Green Bay 35-0 a week before beating Chicago.

Detroit will be New England’s third consecutive NFC North opponent. Brady is 22-4 against NFC teams and 20-1 on artificial surfaces. Sunday’s game was his first on the new artificial turf at Gillette Stadium, which had natural grass since it was built in 2002.

Brady and the Patriots also have the NFL’s best record after Thanksgiving, 34-6, since he became a starter in 2001.

“Those are critical games for everybody, provided that you’re in a position for them to count,” Belichick said. “There’s a lot at stake – (Sunday) night, this week against Detroit, each succeeding week. They’re all big.”

AP-ES-11-27-06 1844EST

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