“We were astonished,” Schatz said.

Had Schatz attended either team’s game four days earlier, he would not have been. As the Patriots absorbed season-ending knee injuries to two starters, linebacker Jerod Mayo and running back Stevan Ridley, in a victory at Buffalo, the Jets lost cornerback Dee Milliner (Achilles’ tendon) and offensive lineman Brian Winters (knee) in a defeat against Denver. That night, Giants receiver Victor Cruz tore the patellar tendon in his right knee and was lost for the season.

The next day, Oct. 13, Milliner and Winters were placed on injured reserve. Over the course of that week, 14 other players from across the league joined them.

Injured reserve is where teams stash their wounded, players guaranteed to miss the season or, in the case of those who land there tagged as designated to return, players expected to come back but not any time soon. Those players, like Spiller and Philadelphia’s All-Pro guard Evan Mathis, are prohibited from practicing for six weeks and playing for eight. Still others begin the season on the physically unable-to-perform list, and they are barred from practicing or playing for the first six weeks of the season.

A survey of every team revealed that through Thursday, 223 players populated those three lists, out of almost 1,700 players on the active rosters. The Colts, with 13, and the Giants, with 11, had been clobbered the hardest.

“We always tell our guys that every single player, whether you’re on the active roster or on the developmental roster, you’ve got to expect to play and prepare to play because that is the nature of this game,” said Jets Coach Rex Ryan, who has six players on injured reserve, compared with nine through seven games last season. He added: “What hurts you sometimes is when you lose two or three guys at one position. Sometimes that’s more difficult to overcome.”