Very sucky news in every way. But the Pats are more prepared for this kind of thing than they ever have been before.
1. Blount has run the ball very well this year and they may need more reliance on the running game.
2. The emergence of White and the return of Lewis. They could run a lot of "pony" formations with both those RBs in the mix, and other teams simply have a hard time dealing with both of them.
3. The fact that the Pats still have Bennett. He's one of the best TEs in football, and while it's always better to have both Gronk and MB, it's still nice to have a pro bowl caliber TE on the field, even if you can't have two of them.
4. Malcolm Mitchell. The Pats have four legit NFL wide receivers that they can throw out there now. They could go completely spread with Lewis in the backfield. Most teams simply don't have the quality of DBs to handle five players like Edelman, Hogan, Mitchell, Amendola, and Lewis.
So does this make things harder? Absolutely. Does this automatically kill the season? No, for the first time in years, I don't think it does.