Rob Gronkowski is out against the 49ers. The Patriots will be fine without him.

A chest injury will keep Rob Gronkowski from the New England Patriots’ Week 11 game against the San Francisco 49ers, but that shouldn’t stop the Patriots offense from imposing its will.

Gronkowski suffered the injury after eating what he described as one of the hardest hits of his career from Seahawks safety Earl Thomas.

“[It was] by a good player; a good fast player who’s like a missile. It was a good, clean hit; nothing against it. I just took it and it just knocked the wind out of me a little bit, that’s all. If you’ve ever gotten the wind knocked out of you, you know what that feels like.”

But Gronkowski didn’t just get the wind knocked out of him — he absorbed an injury that threatened to take him out of the Patriots lineup for an extended period. It will keep him away from action Sunday and his subsequent availability could be in doubt, too.

The 7-2 Patriots should be able to hold their own without the athletic tight end. Gronkowski missed the first two games of the season and hardly played in the third, thanks to a hamstring injury suffered in the preseason. New England managed to go 3-0 without him or quarterback Tom Brady, who missed the first four games of the year due to suspension.

Early in the year, with Brady and Gronkowski out of action, the Patriots leaned heavily on the run. In the first three weeks, New England averaged 36 rushing attempts per game before dialing it back to an average of 26.7 attempts in the last six games.

With Gronkowski out of action and a matchup against the No. 32 rushing defense of the 49ers — a team that allows 5.1 yards per carry — the Patriots are likely to go back to a grinding attack Sunday.

Having Brady back in the lineup, “Gronk” returned to his All-Pro form. In four games before his chest injury, the tight end caught 21 passes for 473 yards and three touchdowns. He was less effective after getting cracked by Thomas, but he still gained 56 yards in New England’s loss.

Brady won’t need Gronkowski to put up MVP-caliber stats against the 49ers Sunday. No team in the nation has given up more yards or points than San Francisco. Since shutting out Los Angeles in Week 1, the average opponent has lit Chip Kelly’s team up for more than 35 points per game. Only two of the team’s eight losses came by seven points or fewer.

Gronkowski could miss more than just Week 11’s action, but New England has hit an accommodating lull in its schedule. After the 49ers, the Patriots face the 3-7 Jets and the 4-5 Rams in a pair of games in which they’ll be favored with or without him. The game-changing tight end may be itching to return to the field, but with a commanding AFC East lead and no matchups against teams with winning records until mid-December, he could get a few extra weeks to rest.