Here are the top areas of emphasis for the Patriots during their bye

The New England Patriots should use these next 11 days to focus on improving in several key areas before facing the Philadelphia Eagles.

While the New England Patriots have just one scheduled practice this week (Wednesday), they’d be smart to take advantage of this extra time off in every conceivable way they can.

Obviously bye weeks are designed primarily to help teams get healthy and take a well-deserved respite in the middle of a grueling 16-game season – or an even longer season if you’re the Patriots. Still, the smartest players, coaches, and staff members know that bye weeks offer up many other beneficial takeaways beyond just R&R.

Bill Belichick understands this better than anyone else in the league. If Belichick had his way, the Patriots would probably still convene often during their bye for meetings, film review, and light practices, even without a game scheduled for the weekend. After all, this is the same guy who famously led a New England victory parade crowd in an enthusiastic chant of “No days off!”

Tom Brady might take a bit more time away from football during this mini-vacation of sorts than he originally did when he first entered the NFL, if only because he’s recently acknowledged prioritizing spending more time with his family than years past. Brady has abstained from voluntary OTAs and other preseason activities the past couple seasons after being a mainstay at such functions earlier in his career, so it probably wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that he’s using the bye week to focus more on quality family time.

That being said, you have to think that a player as competitive as Brady is going to take every spare moment he can to reflect back on what went wrong Sunday night in his team’s first loss of the season… and more importantly, to strategize how he personally can improve in order to avoid losing again. Someone as religiously devoted as Brady is to winning is bound to carve out extra time to watch some game tape and finesse some of his own mechanics.

If the Patriots are smart (and they are), the team will use this time to their advantage. Even with fewer official practices and meetings on the books for the next week-and-a-half, here are some of the key areas of emphasis New England should focus on if they want to avoid more missteps like the one they had in Baltimore.