FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — A month ago, coming off an embarrassing blowout loss in Kansas City on Monday Night Football, the 2-2 New England Patriots were a team at an early-season crossroads. Questions were flying about New England’s talent on both sides of the ball, even going as far as doubt regarding the possible declining skills of 37-year-old quarterback Tom Brady.

Well, what a different a month makes.

In the last four games, a four-game winning streak put the Patriots at 6-2 at the midpoint of the season following Sunday afternoon’s 51-23 blowout of the Chicago Bears at Gillette Stadium. A Brady-led passing attack has returned to its high-scoring, high-octane aerial ways.

In the last four games, Brady has thrown for 14 touchdowns and no interceptions. He topped 100 for a passer rating in all four games. New England is averaged 39.5 points a game in that span, including three over 37 points. And this is coming after averaging only 20 points a game over the first four weeks, and reaching 30 points just once.

In Sunday’s big win Brady, was ridiculously efficient. His top three receiving targets combined to catch all 27 passes thrown their way. In completing 30 of 35 passes, Brady fell victim to three clear drops that would have made his 354-yard, five-touchdown performance even that more eye-opening.

Not surprisingly, the New England offensive outburst coincided with tight end Rob Gronkowski rounding into form returning from the torn ACL he suffered last December. Gronk, as his super hero-like on-field persona is known, had nine catches for 149 yards and three touchdowns against Chicago, including a tackle-breaking 46-yard rumble on his final play of the day in the third quarter.

Gronkowski left the game due to dehydration, the only thing that’s slowed him of late. Big No. 87 has notched a reception of at least 24 yards or longer in four straight games, and topped 94 yards receiving or better in three of those four contests.

“That’s the way he’s been since he got to our team, fortunately for us,” Brady said of his playmaking tight end. “He’s a tough matchup. He’s big, fast, strong and when he plays like beast mode, he’s tough to stop.”

While Brady and Gronkowski are rounding into their tradition roles pacing the Patriots offense, they’re not the only weapons getting it done in the passing game.

Offseason free agent addition Brandon LaFell has seen is role growing dramatically. Sunday afternoon that included a game-high 11 catches for 124 yards and a touchdown. He was Brady’s first target on each of the game’s first three drives for New England. LaFell topped 97 yards or better in three of the last five games, rounding into the complementary role that the Patriots probably envisioned when they signed the former Panther this spring.

“He made a bunch of plays. He has great catch-and-run ability. He’s such a strong runner and when you get the ball in his hands good things happen, so we’ve got to keep finding ways to get him the ball,” Brady said of LaFell before going on to praise the depth of the passing game. “Gronk did a great job. The backs did a great job. Danny (Amendola) made some plays, Jules (Julian Edelman) did, Tim Wright did. It was great to kind of get everybody in the flow and to score a lot of points like that. We need that. That’s what it’s going to take.”

That last part is true not just because the Patriots defense, particularly the front seven, is still a work in progress as it deals with injury. It’s also true because New England begins a formidable five-game stretch this week that will see the team face some of the best quarterbacks and offenses that the NFL has to offer.

In dealing with a murder’s row of passers — named Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, Mathew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers and Philip Rivers — Brady and Co. are must continue to put up points with regularity for the Patriots to emerge from this stretch successfully heading toward the postseason.

While Brady admitted he is looking forward to this week’s challenge in Foxborough against the high-powered Broncos and his 16th career battle with Manning, the one thing he’s not doing is looking back on his team’s early season struggles.

His mentality, much like his offense right now, is full speed ahead.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t tried to evaluate that,” Brady responded when asked for the difference now from the team’s 2-2 start. “I just think we’re playing better. I think we have a lot of confidence in what we’re doing and we have to keep doing it.”

REPORT CARD VS. Bears

–PASSING OFFENSE: A-plus – The Patriots passing attack continues to build momentum and was nearly perfect against a banged up and overmatched Bears defense. Tom Brady had as many touchdown pass, five, as he did incompletions on the day. He was a perfect 27 of 27 to his top three targets, leading New England to scores on its first six possessions of the day, including five touchdowns. Brady finished with 354 yards through the air, was not sacked, did not throw an interception and notched a 148.4 passer rating.

–RUSHING OFFENSE: B-minus – The Patriots are without a true lead back since Stevan Ridley landed on IR, but practice-squad call-up Jonas Gray was productive in his second game. The inexperienced young back rambled for 19 yards on his first carry of the day on the second play from scrimmage and then took advantage of the opportunities offered by the passing production to churn out a career-high 86 yards on 17 attempts for a 5.1-yard average.

–PASS DEFENSE: B – Jay Cutler’s final numbers in the blowout loss don’t look too bad, but the Bears quarterback completed just one of his first five passes on the day on a pair of drives that ended in punts while the Patriots were marching down the field and scoring. New England played more zone coverage than it had of late and it worked. Chicago netted just 22 yards on its first three drives to punts. In the first half, with the Patriots building a 38-7 advantage, Cutler completed just seven of 13 throws for 66 yards, throwing one interception and losing a strip-sack fumble that was returned for a touchdown.

–RUSH DEFENSE: C – The Patriots run defense allowed 218 yards to the New York Jets the previous week, but Chicago came in looking to establish Matt Forte and the running game. Forte finished with 114 yards on 19 attempts.

–SPECIAL TEAMS: B – Stephen Gostkowski was again perfect on field goals, hitting from 23, 27 and 39 yards in an at times gusting wind. Were it not for a bad snap two weeks ago against the Bills, Gostkowski would be a perfect 22 of 22 on his field goals through eight games. Ryan Allen punted just once. Julian Edelman had a nice 42-yard return on a punt late in the second quarter to set up a touchdown (with help from a holding penalty on the Bears coverage unit).

–COACHING: A-minus – Marc Trestman and the Bears were overmatched from the opening kickoff. Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels smartly attacked Bears banged up rookie corner Kyle Fuller. They also took it to an overall Chicago defense that was seemingly defenseless. Defensively Matt Patricia called for a lot of sub looks against the Bears three-receiver sets and utilized a variety of zone packages to frustrate Cutler and his targets.