New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones walks off the field after a 33-14 loss to the Chicago Bears Monday night in Foxborough. (AP photo)

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Someone throw the New England Patriots a life jacket.

They are swimming in a sea of mediocrity, and you don’t want them to drown.

But that’s where they are headed, quarterback controversy or not. They felt they were so superior to the Chicago Bears that they could treat Monday night’s game almost like a preseason affiar, and play two QBs. They forgot that perhaps the Bears and coach Matt Eberflus could game plan with a mobile quarterback and couldn’t stop him. Bailey Zappe’s impact was sudden, strong, and then faded away.

Just like New England’s defense.

“I don’t think anybody on defense needs to worry about who the quarterback is going to be at all,” Patriots safety Devin McCourty said. “We need to worry about what we need to do and figure out how we’re going to get stops and play better. I think that needs to be the key for everybody on defense.”

Look, neither Patriots QB is going to be able to match points with a lot of the elites of the league. Jones perhaps just a bit more than Zappe. But if the New England defense doesn’t play better, no QB will have a shot.

But right now, other than their mediocre nature, the Patriots don’t have much of an identity. Last night they missed Christian Barmore up front on defense; it’s possible the edge players would have had a better shot of keeping Bears QB Justin Fields in the pocket.

But other than those two first half drives orchestrated by receivers way more wide open with Zappe than with Jones, New England’s offense was stagnant. Sure, get off to a slow start, spot the Bears 10 points, but once the Patriots got the lead at home, New England fans are used to them starting to pull away. It didn’t happen, and the wheels came off big time.

“It was terrible,” Patriots tight end Hunter Henry said. “I think everyone is disappointed. We have to leave ourselves in here and and go out on Sunday (at the Jets) and play again, so we hve to look ourselves in the mirror and decide what we want to do.”

You got the sense the Patriots players were shocked.

“I mean it was definitely eye-opening,” receiver Jakobi Meyers said, “but at the end of the day we hve to come here and be better next week, nobody wants to lose two in a row.”

It was a weird Week 7 in the NFL. Green Bay lost at Washington. Carolina, which is basically tanking, knocked off the sulking Tom Brady and Tampa Bay. And no one certainly expected the Bears to dominate the way they did on Monday night.

You have a bad feeling about how things are going here, especially with the quarterback fiasco. Matt Patricia and Joe Judge don’t seem to know how or be able to get the best out of Jones. That is a huge problem, because it’s really hard to believe that Zappe could beat a really, really good football team.

And now the Patriots are stuck with a QB controversy, distracting to the core. Was Jones that limited physically? For crying out loud, he ran for 24 yards.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Belichick said Tuesday morning. “But I’ll just leave it as we did what we felt was best for the team and the players involved. Obviously it didn’t work out. But that (play both QBs) was the decision.”

Suddenly, the Patriots are heading to the Meadowlands in unfamiliar territory, playing a Jets team that has a two-game lead on them in the AFC East. Injuries last week may have hurt the Jets, who have relied on their running game but had to make a trade with Jacksonville on Monday just to re-stock the position. The Patriots will have to show they can bounce back.

And stick with one QB or the other.

“We’ll see what (the situation) is this week,” Belichick said when asked if that will be the plan. “I don’t know.”

The Patriots are in last place in the AFC East. Mediocrity may not be the worst of this thing after all.

RANKINGS

AFC

1.Buffalo (5-1). 2. Kansas City (5-2). 3.Baltimore (4-3). 4 Tennessee (4-2). 5. N.Y. Jets (5-2).

NFC

1.Philadelphia (6-0). 2. Minnesota (5-1). 3.Dallas (5-2). 4.N.Y. Giants (6-1). 5. Seattle (4-3).