The Patriots tend to injured lineman Will Campbell on Sunday. Campbell's injury may not be as bad as was first feared as reports say he suffered a sprained MCL that won't end his season but keep him out a few weeks. (AP photo)

The New England Patriots will finally have their bye week after Monday night’s game at Gillette Stadium against the New York Giants.

It couldn’t come at a better time.

The one thing that they had managed to avoid for the first 11 weeks was a rampant injury bug. Oh, they’d be out a player here or there, such as running back Rhamondre Stevenson or receiver Kayshon Boutte. Others would have aches, pains, etc.

The first sign of trouble was losing arguably their best defensive lineman, Milton Williams, for a month.

Then boom! Last Sunday’s win over Cincinnati wiped out the left side of their offensive line. When players get carted off the field, you don’t expect them to return for the next game or even the game or two after that. Left guard Jared Wilson (high ankle sprain) and left tackle Will Campbell (knee – MCL sprain) will be out, Campbell likely for at least three weeks and Wilson is game-to-game.

“It’s going to be a couple of weeks (for Campbell),” Vrabel said. “We’ll have to make a decision here on the roster to see how long that will be and go from there. But it’s nothing that’s going to, hopefully, put him out for the entire season.”

And Wilson will be rehabbing and that’s up in the air.

The one weakness the Patriots have is depth. That’s about to be tested. Ben Brown played guard and Verderian Lowe, last year’s left tackle, finshed the game and could be out there Monday night.

“Some things we’ll have to continue to work on and clean up, but right now it’s probably a little too soon to figure out what the lineup’s going to look like (next Monday night),” Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said Monday.

And a couple of days ago he gave a prelude to that.

“Injuries – we talk about it,” he said after Sunday’s win at Cincinnati. “It’s a part of the game. We’ll get those guys back from injury. However it is, our staff will do a great job and players will work hard. So, they (the healthy replacements) have to be ready to go. Nobody’s going to feel sorry for us.”

No one ever feels sorry for anyone in the NFL. Some teams have been simply decimated by injuries. You wonder of coaches would rather have a roster of 90 like at the beginning of training camp, a general manager’s nightmare, you can be sure.

The Patriots will be seeing a 2-10 Giants team that is starving for a win, and could easily be 7-5 if it had a better defense and better coaching. They should have beaten Detroit last week on the road instead of losing in OT and are playing hard for interim coach Mike Kafka. In the NFL, though, once teams lose a string of close games, they eventually stop showing up. The Patriots would love it if that happens Monday; the Giants did fire their defensive coordinator Shane Bowen yesterday.

They learned that valuable lesson Sunday that they can’t take anything for granted.

“Yeah, this is the NFL,” corner Christian Gonzalez said. “It’s going to come down to the wire. … it’s just hard to get wins in this league.”

The Patriots needed a game like this last Sunday. You wonder had they had receiver/spitter Ja’Marr Chase, they may have been able to score on that final possession.

But everything has been coming up Patriots, at least in the win column. As tight end Hunter Henry – whom no defensive coordinator can figure out how to cover – said after last Sunday’s game that win over Cincinnati “took everybody that came on the trip. Obviously, a lot of guys went down (last Sunday), unfortunately. And a lot of guys had to step up, and they did and found a way. That’s really what it’s about.”

Despite the fact they had a mini-bye after the Jets win, Vrabel knows he has a tired team on his hands. He’s going to rely on his veterans like Henry and Stefon Diggs on offense and Gonzalez and Robert Spillane on defense to remind the younger players that while the road is long and hard, there is a prize at the end waiting for them if they can keep pushing. First, they’ll have the bye after Monday. While they rest, the Bills and Ravens will be waiting.

Now it’s almost like the high school tournaments. Survive and advance, but advance with a playoff mindset in the regular season.

“(Last Sunday) was a battle,” Gonzalez said. “Any game is. It’s the NFL, so it’s hard to get wins.”

And even harder to stay healthy. But the Patriots, Vrabel says, need to ignore all that and keep trending the way they are.

“Again, I think that they found a way to win,” Vrabel said. “I’m proud of them and there’s a lot more that we can do. And then we can play beter, we can play with better details. But in the end they found a way to win and it’s not easy to do in the league that we’re in. So, we’ll have to kind of keep that fine balance of understanding that wins are important, but improving at this time is what’s most important.”

This week’s rankings:

AFC

1. New England (10-2). 2.Denver (9-2). 3. Buffalo (7-4). 4. Indianapolis (8-3). 5. L.A. Chargers (7-4).

NFC

1.L.A. Rams (9-2). 2.Philadelphia (8-3). 3. Detroit (7-4). 4.Seattle (8-3). Chicago (8-3).