ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Good team, bad luck.

Good season, bad ending.

Since 1978, when the NFL went to a 16-game schedule, only one team had gone 11-5 and failed to go to the playoffs - the 1985 Denver Broncos.

The Patriots on Sunday became the second.

Since 1990, when the NFL expanded its playoff format to 12 teams, no 11-5 team had ever missed the playoffs.

The Patriots on Sunday became the first.

The Pats pitched a shutout, beating the Bills, 13-0, to finish the 2008 season with a four-game winning streak and an 11-5 record.

Unfortunately, they were shut out of the playoffs for the first time since 2002 because the Jets -- as if New England fans didn't already have enough reasons to hate them -- couldn't come through.

Eric Mangini's chokers -- they dropped four of their last five, including losses at San Francisco and Seattle -- went down again Sunday night to another dismal defeat, losing at the Meadowlands to the surprising Dolphins, who, after going 1-15 last season, won nine of their last 10 games and brought to a close New England's five-year reign as AFC East champs.

You have to admire the Dolphins, who came into Foxboro on the third Sunday of the season having lost 20 of their previous 21 games and, unveiling their innovative wildcat formation -- a modern-day variation of the old single wing -- put a decisive stop to the Patriots' 21-game regular-season winning streak with a resounding, 38-13 victory.

Had the Pats won that game, they would have won the division. As it is, they lost out to the Dolphins because Miami had a better conference record: 8-4 to New England's 7-5.

Despite that, this New England team deserves to be congratulated, not criticized.

This season seemed to be over almost before it began, after all-world quarterback Tom Brady -- the face of the franchise and of multiple magazine covers, a two-time Super Bowl MVP who had thrown for a league-record 50 touchdowns while leading the Patriots through an undefeated regular season in 2007 -- went down with a season-ending knee injury in the first quarter of the first game.

After all, his replacement, Matt Cassel, hadn't started a game since he was in high school.

But Cassel won his first start, beating the Jets at the Meadowlands, and far exceeded expectations in leading the Patriots to a record that, in any of the last 22 NFL seasons, would have been enough to make the playoffs.

It seems the Pats never can catch a break.

They didn't in 1977, or 1980, or 1983, or 1987, or 1988, or 2002, or, as it turns out, in 2008.

In all of those years, the Patriots went into the final weekend needing help from another team to slip into the playoffs. In none of those years did they get it.

They were hoping their luck would change Sunday.

"Let's go Jets!" fullback Heath Evans shouted as he entered the New England locker room after the Patriots' game.

Cassel paused to hug Myra Kraft -- wife of Robert, the team owner -- and said to her: "Now we have to get some help."

"Our job is done," running back LaMont Jordan said, "Now we have to hope that [Jets QB] Brett Favre is as great as the media makes him out to be."

Favre was great -- when he played for the Packers. Not in New York, however. And certainly not Sunday night, when he threw three interceptions. The Jets dumped Chad Pennington when they signed Favre, and it was Pennington who sparked the resurgent Dolphins to the division title, throwing for two TDs without an interception against his former team.

Mangini -- a former assistant to Bill Belichick whose relationship with his old boss is cooler than even that between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie -- was being referred to as "Man-genius" in the New York tabloids when the Jets were 8-3. Now, those same papers are calling for him to be fired. Patriots fans surely would second that suggestion.

Although the Pats didn't make the playoffs, Belichick's reputation has only been enhanced by the way he kept his injury-riddled team in playoff contention.

"I'm going to take a warm shower, call my kids, and enjoy this victory -- this 11th win," he said after beating the Bills for the 11th consecutive time, and the 15th in the last 16 games.

"I respect this group of guys immensely," Belichick said. "The players gave us all they have. They've worked hard, and fought through a lot of adversity."

The Pats' playoff hopes looked dim when they were pounded by Pittsburgh in Foxboro on the last day of November. It was their third loss in five games and left them 7-5, with three of their final four games on the road.

The Patriots proceeded to win them all.

"We lost three tough games," Belichick said, "but battled through that stretch and came back and won the next four in a lot of different conditions -- the heavy rain at Oakland, the snow in Foxboro [against Arizona], and the wind today.

"This is a mentally tough team, a resilient team. If we'd gotten one or two more wins, that would have helped. But that's water under the bridge."

Evans put things in the proper perspective.

"You win 11 games in this league," he said, "it's a great year."