With the news the Patriots will lose defensive end Andre Carter for the rest of the season because of a left leg injury he sustained in the first quarter of Sunday’s win over the Broncos, the focus now turns to how New England plans to replace his production along the defensive line.

Carter was the best and most consistent pass rusher of the season for the Patriots, with 10 sacks and 22 quarterback hits through the first 13 games of the season. From his right defensive end spot, he was able to consistently beat single blockers. (Two weeks ago, he said that he had started seeing more and more double teams.)

Without Carter, the Patriots will now be forced to look elsewhere for some pass rush depth. While there’s a question as to where he will play, defensive end Mark Anderson certainly made his presence felt once Carter went down on Sunday, finishing with two sacks. He is now second on the team in sacks with nine and quarterback hits with eleven.

While Anderson has excelled when it comes to getting after the passer (Pro Football Focus has his graded at +11.7 for his work rushing the passer the season, best on the team), he has not played as much on running downs, and may not have the sort of impact as a three-down player that Carter has had this season. (By way of comparison, PFF had Carter graded at +15.6 against the run, while Anderson is +3.9.)

“The interesting thing about Carter this year was how well he was playing the run,” writes PFF’s Sam Monson in an e-mail to WEEI.com. “He has always been a pretty effective pass-rusher, but he has struggled badly in the run game in recent years, in multiple fronts, but this season he was excelling. He leads all Patriots in defensive stops (including sacks), and he has our highest grade vs. the run of any Patriot defender.”

The other big name who could be affected because of the loss of Carter is linebacker Rob Ninkovich. Ninkovich has been on New England’s defensive front for much of the season, serving as both a defensive end and linebacker (although most of his time has been as an linebacker, while Carter has been more of an end). Through 14 games, Ninkovich is third on the team with 5.5 sacks and nine quarterback hits.

While the Patriots could ultimately shift to playing more of a three-man front with the loss of Carter, Anderson isn’t the only one who stands to get more playing time as the result of Carter’s injury. Here are five other candidates to see a boost in playing time:

Eric Moore: The 6-foot-4, 268-pound defensive end who recently returned to New England was able to provide a spark for a depleted Patriots’ pass rush with two sacks in four games at the end of the 2010 season, and could do the same thing this year. (According to PFF, he has 11 snaps to this point in the season.)

Brandon Deaderick: The second-year lineman out of Alabama has the sort of positional versatility the Patriots look for in their down linemen (he’s played both tackle and end), but after starting the season on the physically unable to perform list, the 6-foot-4, 305-pounder been fairly limited in his work to this point in the season. (PFF has him at 223 snaps this season.)

Shaun Ellis: The 6-foot-4, 290-pound veteran has struggled at times in his first season with the Patriots, but the 34-year-old has the same sort of positional versatility that Deaderick has. While he couldn’t replicate the pass rushing skills of Carter or Anderson, he could provide depth at the spot down the stretch and into the postseason.

Markell Carter: Trading one Carter for another, at least when it comes to the roster spot, seems to make a lot of sense. The team really likes the younger Carter, who has been on the practice squad all season and was named a Practice Player of the Week six times this season. He was really the only pass rusher the Patriots selected in the 2011 draft, taken in the sixth-round of the draft out of Central Arkansas. (It’s clear the team likes the 6-foot-4, 248-pounder -- he recently had his practice squad salary doubled from $149,000 to $306,000.)

Tully Banta-Cain: A longshot, but the former Patriots outside linebacker/defensive end is still out on the market. He knows the system, which would mean the 31-year-old wouldn’t need much time to pick up the system. He led the Patriots in sacks the last two years, but it’s debatable how much he still has left in the tank, as he was released by the Patriots at the start of training camp in July and hasn’t been picked up by anyone since. (He re-aggravated an abdominal strain from last season working out during the NFL lockout, and had to have surgery.)

“Looking at possible replacement candidates, Ellis this year has been disappointing, but if you go back even just a season ago he was a capable run defender for the Jets,” Monson said. “Deaderick is playing essentially the same football as Ellis. They’re both underwhelming, neither is applying much pressure (Ellis has a hit and eight pressures from 154 pass rushes and Deaderick has a sack and five pressures from 131 rushes), and both guys are anonymous so far in the run game (five defensive stops apiece).

“I would look to slot Mark Anderson in and ramp up his snaps against the run. He’s played just 92 snaps so far against the run (compared to 252 rushing the passer), but has graded well in limited snaps, and his 19 stops is tied for fifth-best on the team despite half the snaps of the people above him. Like Carter, he has been playing unusually well in all facets of the game this season, and he might be a guy to reward for that with more snaps in all areas.”