LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Lovie Smith stood by his man Sunday night in New England, reaffirming his commitment to Rex Grossman after the Bears quarterback threw three interceptions in a 17-13 loss to the Patriots.

“We didn’t complete the job, but Rex is our quarterback,” Smith said. “I’ll say it right now: Rex is our quarterback. We’ll make the necessary corrections, which we’ve done in the past. We’re 9-2 right now with Rex leading our football team. Rex is our quarterback and we’ll go from there.

Rex Grossman passed for 176 yards with three interceptions in Sunday's 17-13 loss.

“He had a couple bad passes. I made a lot of bad calls. We made a lot of bad calls. You could go across the board. We had an opportunity still to win the football game. We’re not going to put it on one guy.”

Under consistent pressure, Grossman completed 15 of 34 passes for 176 yards and a 23.7 passer rating. Since throwing 10 touchdown passes and three interceptions in the first five games of the season, the 2003 first-round pick has tossed 8 TDs and 11 interceptions in his last six starts.

On Sunday, Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel became the first Bears opponent to intercept three passes in a game since Lions safety Kurt Schulz Sept. 24, 2000 at Soldier Field.

Samuel’s first pick came when he stepped in front of Bernard Berrian on a quick slant. The second occurred on an underthrown pass intended for Desmond Clark. And the third happened on a deep pass down the middle to Rashied Davis, icing the win with 1:46 remaining.

“Their defensive back made some great plays,” Smith said. “At the end we had the look. We had a corner man-on-man without safety help. You want to throw the ball in those situations. I’m going to put a little bit on him and talk about the great plays that Samuel made.”

“I don’t think any of them were real bad decisions,” said offensive coordinator Ron Turner. “The first one they were in man coverage and he got a great jump on it and just beat him to the inside. The second one was a little bit underthrown. The last one was a great play, no question about it. We had the look we wanted and he just made a great play on it.”

Grossman’s 47-yard completion to Berrian put the Bears in position to score the game’s first points early in the second quarter. But on third-and-goal from the New England 5, the quarterback fumbled the exchange from center Olin Kreutz and Patriots defensive end Richard Seymour recovered at the 8. Kreutz later blamed himself for the miscue.

“We have to get better in the red zone,” Turner said. “(When) we get down there we have to put the ball in the end zone. We can’t fumble the snap and lose the ball. You have to at least get three points and we didn’t give ourselves a chance to try to get a touchdown on that play.”

Both of the Bears’ fourth-quarter scores were set up by pass interference penalties that occurred on deep third-down throws to Berrian. A 45-yard penalty against safety Artrell Hawkins at the New England 6 led to Cedric Benson’s 1-yard TD run and a 30-yard penalty on cornerback Ellis Hobbs at the 18 set up Robbie Gould’s 32-yard field goal.

Berrian appeared to be interfered with on two pass plays on the same first-quarter drive—first deep down the middle and then in the end zone—but no flags were thrown.

“There were a couple calls that I think should have went the other way, but I can’t really comment on that too much though,” Berrian said. “It was real frustrating. Those are kind of drive-stoppers because those are big chunks of yardage.”

Berrian still recorded the second 100-yard receiving game of his career, catching five passes for a game-high 104 yards, all in the first half. The 2004 third-round pick had three receptions for 108 yards and 1 TD in a 37-6 win over the Seattle Seahawks Oct. 1 at Soldier Field.

“We were in situations where we had one-on-one coverage and you need a guy that runs deep and puts pressure on the DBs like that and Bernard was able to do that,” Smith said.