Defense put it all on the line

FOXBOROUGH -- Forget the individual performances, the blocked field goal by Richard Seymour that would have put the Bears on the board first, and the 15 tackles between Vince Wilfork (8) and Ty Warren (7), because in the trenches, this game was about the defensive line as a whole. It was about the Patriots stopping the run when it counted, preventing enough of the Bears' attempts to shove both the football and Thomas Jones into their faces, and ultimately showing they wouldn't be pushed around.

"In the second half, this game was basically line up and smashmouth," linebacker Tedy Bruschi said after the Patriots held on for the 17-13 win over Chicago at Gillette Stadium. "They came out running the ball three times consecutively on the first drive of the second half. That kind of tells you what they were saying in their locker room: 'We're going to line up and we're going to run it down their throats and we're going to get yards, guys. This is what we're going to do.'

"They stuck to their game plan, but our defensive line, I think that's the strength of our team. We welcome that challenge whenever a team wants to do that."

One week after New England's line shut down the Packers' rushing attack, led by Ahman Green, the Patriots couldn't quite shut down Jones. But they did just enough -- like that three-and-out, all running plays, to open the second half -- to make sure the Bears respected their linemen.

All of them.

So, while Seymour got the praise, especially for the athletic move on a blocked first-quarter field goal attempt that kept the game scoreless, the sixth such play of his career, each lineman gave compliments to his mates. That included Warren, who announced he was ceding the wrestling belt won for best line play against the Packers to the entire group.

With the flash in the secondary -- Asante Samuel's three interceptions -- the guts were left to the defensive front. And it countered a relentless Bears running game by keeping Jones (99 yards) and Cedric Benson (46) mostly in check. Though the Bears did accumulate 153 yards on the ground on 36 attempts, it was just four rushes -- two by each back -- that significantly contributed to that total. Exclude those four runs (14, 16, 17, and 17 yards) and the other 32 attempts yielded just 89 yards, or barely 2.8 per carry.

"I think we all did a good job," Warren said. "The thing we discussed on the sideline is whenever any one of us had a one-on-one situation, we all won our battles. If it wasn't Vince in the backfield, it was myself or Seymour or the linebackers back there.

"I think they had [four] decent gains in the running game. That usually doesn't happen. We'll go back and try to correct that -- a lot of that was just missed tackles."

While they did miss enough to allow those bursts from Jones and Benson, they made enough to necessitate quarterback Rex Grossman throwing the ball a few times, including those three passes that landed in Samuel's arms. And that allowed Seymour to show his prowess in defending the passing game: his sack, two quarterback hurries, and one pass defended pinned Grossman with his second straight poor performance.

The line didn't quite match its performance from a week ago but Seymour and company helped create a bit of havoc, helped stop a determined rush game, helped the defense stand up to the Bears.

"It became more of a nine on seven game for us up front," Seymour said. "They were trying to run the football, and also throw in some play-action passes. They did a good job trying to keep us off balance. We just made more plays when it came down to it. That's what it's going to take at this point in the season.

"Teams are going to definitely try to run. You have to give them a lot of credit. I think that's how you win a lot of football games, being able to stick to it and hopefully break a few and they did that. I just think at the most critical times and the most crucial points in the game, we just made some big plays."

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.