The Patriots' slow start now seems like a distant memory, what with the team's back-to-back convincing wins against the Bengals and the Bills. But while there's little reason to worry about Tom Brady, New England suffered two big losses Sunday when running back Steven Ridley and linebacker Jerod Mayo were lost to injuries.

While the Patriots aren't commenting on the extent of the injuries, ESPN's Adam Schefter called Mayo's right knee injury "bad" and that he will miss the rest of the season. And ESPNBoston.com's Mike Reiss hears that Ridely tore his ACL, and is also done for 2015.

"Unfortunately I don't think it looks too good, but we'll see what we get back [from tests]," coach Bill Belichick said Monday during an appearance on WEEI. "We'll wait until we get more specific information, but I don't think it's minor, let's put it that way."

Patriots safety Devin McCourty said what everyone already knows: With Mayo likely out for an extended period, it's incumbent on everyone else to pick up the slack.

"Everyone has to step up if Mayo can't go," he said. "That just is what it is. One guy is not going to do what Mayo's done the last seven years. ... You just can't pick one guy to go out there and do that."

Special-teams captain Matthew Slater adds: "It was a blow. You can't try to pretend like it's just one of those things that you can move on from because you feel for a guy like Jerod," he said. "To see him go down, I know it took a toll on me. But we will do the best we can to bounce back.

"A lot of guys have to step up because a guy like that is hard to replace. Hopefully we can play well for him the rest of the year. There is no replacing that guy with one guy, it's going to take a lot of guys to step up."

Even without Mayo or Ridley, conventional wisdom says New England will have little trouble against a hapless Jets outfit. Of course, a lot of us were saying the same thing about the Pats' Week 1 matchup with the Dolphins.