FOXBORO — The Patriots are loving an analogy that head coach Mike Vrabel first brought to the table before Thanksgiving.

The team isn’t looking to “change the macaroni and cheese” before the playoffs.

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Vrabel told the team a story about a woman changing the recipe for her mac and cheese before Thanksgiving. The old mac and cheese was a favorite, a standby. You can’t change the recipe before such an important event.

That’s what the Patriots want to avoid before the playoffs, because the old mac and cheese recipe resulted in a 14-3 record and No. 2 seed in the postseason. They have to stick with what they know works for when the Chargers play at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

“No new macaroni,” wide receiver Stefon Diggs said Thursday. “I guess people get in the playoffs, and your surroundings and the people around you kind of make thing like it’s different, but were you trying to win last week? Were you trying to win the last week? Were you trying to win your individual rep? Or were you preparing the right way? So that’s why I say, like, no new macaroni and cheese with me. Like I’m going the same way.”

That doesn’t mean that the Patriots’ coaches won’t try to introduce new wrinkles this week, however. They still need to be creative and try to catch the Chargers off guard.

But the Patriots aren’t trying to treat this week any differently, so Vrabel has made sure to keep the schedule and practice the same as any other week.

“I think the biggest thing is just keeping your process the same,” offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said. “I don’t think it’s one specific thing where you say, ‘Well, don’t change anything in that area.’ I think it’s just whatever we’ve been doing during the course of the season to get ready to play our best football week in and week out, I think that’s what you want to stay true to. It doesn’t mean that you can’t run a new formation. It doesn’t mean you can’t run something new that, whatever, somebody hadn’t seen. But just stick to what has worked for us, what the players know best …

“Sunday night, look, when that ball kicks off, it’s the same 60 minutes as it’s been all season. It’s just, we know there’s a little bit more on the line, but it doesn’t mean that anything we do during the course of the week leading up to the game should be different. Try to stay as true to our process as we can.”

Wide receiver Kayshon Boutte said Thursday that it hasn’t been difficult to prepare the same way despite the stakes being so high in Sunday night’s game against the Chargers.

“I mean, it’s playoffs now, obviously it’s win or go home. But at the end of the day, it is another game,” Boutte said. “Not saying it like it’s just another game, but I mean, it’s a good opponent. It’s playoffs. We got to prepare with the biggest sense of urgency this week. We never know if this could be our last or we can advance. So we just got to approach it that way.”

Vrabel has received impressive buy-in from his players this season as a first-year head coach.