The Patriots are coming off a mini bye week after last Thursday night’s loss to the Bears, with a 4:25 p.m. ET trip to Miami on the docket for Sunday.

Before we get to the Dolphins (1-5), New England’s three-day weekend gave them a seven-game sample size to do some self-scouting. At 4-3, the Pats have shown promise in a three-game winning streak that leveled things off after a 1-2 start. Drake Maye is trending upward again, leading all quarterbacks in EPA per drop-back since Week 4 (sixth overall). That said, New England could improve on a few things, and head coach Mike Vrabel said Monday that the Patriots focused inward to start the week.

“(Monday) has just got to be about where we’re at after seven games and some things that we can reasonably improve on. And some things we’re just going to have to be okay with that we’re probably not going to be able to improve on,” Vrabel told WEEI radio. Later in the week, Vrabel expanded on self-scouting.

“When I look at it from my perspective, it’s like, this is what we’ve seen from seven weeks. We can yell and scream about it till we’re blue in the face, or we can coach it, and it’s maybe not going to change. And it doesn’t have to necessarily be negative,” Vrabel said. “There are only certain ways to improve throughout the season, and maybe that’s a few details or a few fundamentals, and to think that there’s going to be a wholesale change based on what we’ve seen from seven weeks, I don’t know. But we’re going to keep harping on the fundamentals and giving guys a couple of things that realistically they can improve on.”

Offensively, New England’s running game falls into both categories: it’s something it can reasonably improve, but it might not be able to in certain ways. The Patriots rank 27th in rush EPA through seven weeks but fifth in pass EPA, showing how much Maye and the passing game carry the offense. More specifically, the Pats rank 26th in EPA per play from under center, and their under-center play-action efficiency is also near the bottom of the league (31st).

New England mostly relies on gap schemes like duo runs, using interior double teams to move the line of scrimmage. In the first seven weeks, the Patriots are sixth in gap-run rate (48.6%) and fifth in duo run rate (37%). Patriots OC Josh McDaniels has diversified the run menu, with the Pats duo rate dropping from 46.6% in their first three games to 30% since Week 4. Still, New England is mainly trying to run downhill.

On the one hand, the Patriots could stick with their under-center philosophy and hope it improves with more time on task. You need to keep repping the run game to build chemistry between the backs and blockers on combination blocks and double teams, which is harder with a rotating offensive line due to injuries. However, you could also argue that if it hasn’t taken hold in seven games, the Patriots may need to slightly change how they run the ball and call play-action off the run.

Under-center run actions offer multiple benefits, including selling play-action better, having more runs at your disposal, and building an offense for bad weather in New England. But the numbers would suggest that playing from under center isn’t working. It could be time to lean more on shotgun or even pistol runs, where the Pats could incorporate RPOs and pistol actions to keep run-pass deception in their scheme.

Defensively, we noted in our film review of the Bears game that the Patriots need to be more DTF moving forward (details, technique, fundamentals). At times, the Pats defense has struggled to stop the run (22nd in rush EPA), tackle (11th-highest missed tackle rate), and allows too much space in zone coverage. Like their running game on offense, the Patriots must be more consistent in zone coverage.