GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Green Bay Packers will take all the extra time they can get in the next week.

On top of Green Bay’s bye falling smack dab in the middle of the 16-game regular season between the eighth and ninth games, an additional hour will be acquired with Daylight Saving Time ending early Sunday morning.

“After eight games in this league, this is a great time for us,” coach Mike McCarthy said.

McCarthy excused the players for the rest of the week after they reported to the team’s Lambeau Field headquarters Monday for meetings. A smattering of players also received treatment for injuries.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers is the most notable on the short injury list after he sustained a pulled left hamstring while running with the football early in the second half of the Packers’ 44-23 road loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday night. Since the Packers don’t play again until they host the rival Chicago Bears on Nov. 9, Rodgers, who kept playing against the Saints until late in the game, is expected to be fine come next week.

He presumably wasn’t required by the team’s medical staff to stick around this week for further evaluation and treatments.

Right guard T.J. Lang also was knocked out of Sunday’s game with an ankle injury that he sustained in the game-opening possession while blocking on Rodgers’ 70-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Randall Cobb.

“I have confidence that those guys will have a chance to play against Chicago,” McCarthy said. “We’ll know more when we get back at our first practice on Monday.”

The Packers also hope to get the starting duo of cornerback Sam Shields (knee) and safety Morgan Burnett (calf) back on the field after they missed the last game.

The players don’t report back for work until Monday morning, when they will gather for a team meeting.

At that time, McCarthy will go over the self-scouting reports for the first half of the season completed by the coaching staff this week.

“We’ve got a couple little new things that I’ll go through with the team,” McCarthy said, “and then we’ll start our preparation for Chicago.”

The first day after the bye also will be devoted to what surely will be a slew of corrections from the Superdome debacle against the Saints. New Orleans bludgeoned a short-handed and fundamentally deficient Green Bay defense for 495 total yards, including 193 rushing yards.

“I used to like to get back, correct the game on Monday right after, get it in the can and get everything organized,” McCarthy said. “But I don’t think that’s the case because I think sometimes those lessons get lost, especially coming after a loss and after a loss (in the manner) we lost (Sunday) night.”

The Saints not only ended Green Bay’s four-game winning streak and its stay atop the NFC North but also exposed some significant flaws for the Packers, who took their worst defeat of the season. Green Bay lost by 20 points at Seattle against the reigning Super Bowl champion Seahawks in Week 1.

“It’s disappointing,” Rodgers said after Sunday’s game.

While the offense that averaged 34.5 points during Green Bay’s four straight wins sputtered after getting the early touchdown from Rodgers to Cobb, the defense resorted to its early-season propensity for missing a bevy of tackles. About a dozen of those came on runs by Saints halfback Mark Ingram, who rushed for a career-high 172 yards with a gaudy per-carry average of 7.2 yards.

Dropping to 5-3 and a game behind the Detroit Lions in the division standings left a bitter taste for many with the Packers, particularly McCarthy.

“I wouldn’t say satisfied,” said McCarthy, when asked for his assessment of Green Bay’s third consecutive season of being 5-3 at the midway point. “I think you have to be realistic is probably a better view for me to express to you. I’m realistic with our strengths and continue to work at the things we need to do better. I think you definitely identify yourself as a team after six, seven, eight games. … We had some very unusual games earlier in the year, but I think the last four weeks we have identified who we are.

“We need to stop the run. We can be explosive on offense. You take care of the football, take the football away. We’ve established that — (Sunday) night, we did not. But we need to be more than a football team that just has to rely on winning the turnover ratio.”

The Packers went into Sunday’s game No. 1 in the NFL with a takeaway-giveaway margin of plus-10. However, they relinquished that spot by turning the ball over a season-high three times (including two interceptions by Rodgers on tipped passes) to just one turnover by the Saints.

It was the first time this season Green Bay lost the turnover battle. The Packers have just seven giveaways after eight games.

“This game is about making big plays and taking care of the football, taking it away — those are two of the most critical components of it,” McCarthy said. “But, to get to where we want to go, we’ve got to overcome when we don’t just play right straight to our identity or to our format, and we did not do that (Sunday) night.”