Last week, during a 45-3 win over the Jets, people wondered why Tom Brady was in the game during the fourth quarter of a romp. He explained that he wanted to play a ‘complete’ 60-minute game. On Sunday, with a 27-0 lead as time was winding down in the first half, it appeared the Patriots would be happy to take that four-touchdown lead to the locker room. Most quarterbacks would. But not Tom Brady.

And thanks to Brady, the play that put the final nail in the Bears’ coffin was pulled off perfectly. But it nearly didn’t happened.

Deion Branch caught a 59-yard ‘hitch and go’ route from Brady down the left sideline as time expired in the first half. But Branch said there was “a lot of yelling” on the Patriots sideline with one coach yelling out for Brady to take a knee with a 27-0 lead.

“At one point, the coach was telling us to take a knee [laughter] and I’m looking at Tom like, ‘take a knee,’ and he was like, ”No.’ He called a route and I was like, ‘Alright, good. That’s a good route.’ I’m thankful to have him,” said Branch, who felt the TD made up for the 71-yard punt return for a TD by Julian Edelman that was called back because of holding by rookie Dane Fletcher.

“But if you think about it they took the punt return away from Julian, which was a big minus,” Branch added. “That guy’s been working real hard. But I think we capitalized on what they were giving us on defense. We took a shot at it and it worked. I wasn’t looking at the defender in the back half but my job was to get past Charles Tillman and let Tom and the front line do the rest and they did it.”

So the next time anyone wants to accuse Bill Belichick of running up the score, they may want to ask Tom Brady first.

Belichick, as it turned out, had seen enough when Brady got sacked late in the fourth quarter. He completed a first-down pass of 28 yards to Brandon Tate and it was Brian Hoyer time.