The magic carpet ride has stopped.

Will Campbell just slipped off.

Jared Wilson did, too.

The Patriots lost two other players and some measure of hope Sunday in Cincinnati, though the record books will all show they won.

But how did you experience that game?

Not as an unfettered celebration. Not as the Patriots’ ninth straight win, or a victory that pushed them into the No. 1 seed in the AFC.

“Everybody wants to talk about numbers and records,” Mike Vrabel said post-game. “That doesn’t mean s—.”

Vrabel couldn’t muster a smile longer than a split second in his press conference. This one hurt.

The Patriots played poorly, and their Super Bowl dreams took a hit. The exact damage won’t be known until medical tests reveal how long Campbell and Wilson are out, and that news gets leaked to the team’s insider of choice. And the news will be some degree of bad.

Until then, the fact is the left side of the Pats’ offensive line had to be carted off the field. While Campbell was wheeled away, he hung a towel over his head; the white flag of every seriously injured athlete. Later in the locker room, Wilson walked with the aid of a crutch and wore a boot on his right foot.

Contrast those scenes against the images of the football fantasy this Patriots’ season has been.

Milton Williams’ game-saving sack in Miami. Drake Maye‘s game-winning drive at Buffalo. TreVeyon Henderson pulling away for a late touchdown in Tampa Bay. Stefon Diggs catching virtually every third-down throw and converting every time.

All of those wonderful moments, all of that fan ecstasy, obscured the harsh realities of the harshest league in professional sports.

Teams typically don’t win all their road games in the NFL.

They don’t play 11 games without losing a single starter to injured reserve.

They don’t watch a young quarterback make a Year 2 leap so high he joins the league’s elite before turning 25.

That is except in New England, where the magic of a second-year quarterback and a brilliant, second-time head coach once launched a dynasty, and lately has begun to stir the imagination once again. That’s what made Sunday so difficult.

Even in the absence of hard information about their respective statuses, the threat of losing Campbell and Wilson hurts because competitive pain is always tied to the bliss of possibility. The Patriots can sprint to the Super Bowl if they’re healthy. If.

And before Sunday, the Pats had dodged the injury bug better than any team in the league. Last week, Williams became the Patriots’ first starter to land on IR, a major departure from Vrabel’s time coaching the Titans when good health was no given. Over Vrabel’s final two seasons, Tennessee ranked 30th and 32nd in adjusted games lost, an advanced metric that accounts for injury severity and players’ roles. The Titans placed more than 30 players on IR in 2022.

But at least the Pats could fill Williams’ starting spot with Tonga, a pleasant, starting-caliber surprise this season. Now Tonga is gone, which partially explains how Anfernee Jennings, Cory Durden, Bradyn Swinson and Elijah Ponder could form the Patriots’ entire pass rush for a time on Cincinnati’s final drive.

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Then there’s Campbell, perhaps the most irreplaceable player on the Patriots’ roster after Maye. That is a compliment to Campbell as much as it is concern over the depth behind him. That depth is named Vederian Lowe, who became a punching bag for frustrated fans everywhere as one of the worst pass-protecting offensive tackles in football last year.

If Lowe supplies similar protection this season, more hits are coming for Maye, who is already under pressure at the 11th-highest rate in the league, according to Sports Info. Solutions. If the Patriots want to keep pace in their hunt for the No. 1 seed, Maye nonetheless must maintain his pace as a leading MVP candidate. That first-round bye feels mandatory, too, because beating three straight playoff teams is too much to ask of a roster already fragile by postseason standards that cracked on Sunday.

“I hope (Campbell)’s back,” Diggs said. “I hope it’s not as bad as we think.”

A day before traveling to Cincinnati, Vrabel dismissed the Patriots’ good health because he sensed more pain on the horizon.

He was right.

If only he knew just how much pain was coming.

“There’s going to be some injuries that we’re just not going to be able to avoid,” Vrabel said Friday. “Like I tell everybody, the injury rate in the National Football League is 100 percent. You play long enough, you’re guaranteed to get hurt.”