FOXBOROUGH – A few weeks ago, there was quite a bit of talk about bad the Patriots had been at home in recent years.

Then, New England hammered Carolina, went on the road for three weeks, won three straight and everyone believes they can now seriously compete in the AFC.

But, New England is still 1-2 at Gillette Stadium this year. The Pats have just five wins at home over the last two-plus years. It’s a problem. It’s a problem that needs to be fixed if Mike Vrabel’s team is going to continue this remarkably quick turnaround.

Vrabel was here when 1 Patriots Place was a terrible place to play for opponents, no matter what time of year it was. I asked him about getting back to that point on Monday, especially with five of the team’s next seven games in Foxborough.

“Well, we’re going to focus on the next one, not five of the next seven, but certainly have appreciated the way that we’ve played on the road. And we know how important the home games are,” he said. “You have to hold serve, you have to be great at home and use that to an advantage to where it’s hard to operate, we’re giving them reasons to cheer, celebrate and be excited.

“And so, those are things that are important to us. So, hopefully we’ll give them that product this weekend.”

Austin Hooper also spoke Monday about needing to make Gillette a hard place to play again.

“I think it just comes down to execution. I know it sounds like a boring answer, but that’s the truth of it,” Hooper said. “I mean, you guys obviously saw the first two games here at home, that’s what it comes down to. Like, I answered (a previous question) earlier about guys playing next to each other, I mean, it turned out with our schedule we got to stack a lot of reps with each other on the road in loud road environments. So, just all those repetitions, all that time on task together…seeing it the same way, pushing in the same direction, so I’m more concerned with us being able to go in that angle.

“Whether that’s, you know, obviously wherever we play…now we get to show it of course here at home where we want to do it the most. So, it’s pretty boring, but it just comes down to the work and time on task and a bunch of new guys early in the year playing next to each other. I had my hand in it just like other guys did. We’ve got to execute better. Not just in the pass game, but in the run game as well.

“So, I think a bunch of those stacked reps together have definitely paid dividends.”

Jahlani Tavai weighed in on how the Patriots can make Gillette a hard place to play again as well.

“We’ve just gotta protect the house,” he said. “You know, this is our home. We’ve got home field advantage. We got a great crowd going and we’ve just got to use that to our advantage. A lot of people don’t like playing in New England, especially when the winter time comes. We’ve just got to take advantage of that.

“But, it’s on us as players that each and every play that we execute and make sure…whether it’s on defense, we create negative plays and make sure we stop them on early downs. That way, we can just go eat.”

With Cleveland and Atlanta up next to close out October and open November, the Pats certainly have a chance to feast and keep things rolling.