It’s over, officially.

There won’t be any football excitement around here in early and mid January.

We haven’t even hit Christmas yet and the New England Patriots now know after Sunday’s 22-12 loss at Miami that they won’t be taking part in what Bill Parcells would always call “The Tournament”, otherwise known as the NFL playoffs.

It’s the first time since 2008 Gillette Stadium will be dark after the first weekend in January. There’s a Monday Night game vs. Buffalo on Dec. 28 whose only meaning may be the new AFC East champion Bills trying to snag home field in the Wild Card round (with seven teams only the top seed gets a bye). Then there’s the finale vs. the Jets on Jan. 3 that we all thought would be meaningless anyway given New York’s dismal team but not so much from the Patriots’ point of view.

Yes, officially it’s the first time that the Patriots have missed the playoffs since 2008. But this will be the first time they’ve been eliminated with this much time left in the season since Bill Belichick’s first year as their head coach and head football guy, period.

That season of 2000 they went 5-11 after Belichick had to spend the time cleaning out the soft part of the roster.

In 2002, they lost out at 9-7 on the final day due to tiebreakers with the Jets winning the AFC East, and weren’t able to defend their first Super Bowl crown. That’s the only season New England missed the postseason with Tom Brady as their quarterback. He was a rookie third stringer in 2000 and of course tore up his knee in the season opener in 2008, missing the entire season. But even that season it came down to the final day as the Patriots still were 11-5.

That year, according to Yahoo Sports, the top song was Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”. The top movie was “Marley and Me”, and the top TV show was the original American Idol.

It’s ironic the Dolphins were the team that ended the Patriots’ chances. They were the AFC East champs in 2008, coached by the now-late Tony Sporano. That year the Miami QB was Chad Pennington, who was also the QB in 2002 for the Jets. They beat the Jets on the last day, leading to the firing of Jets head coach and former Patriots assistant Eric Mangini. And this time, former Patriots assistant Brian Flores coached the Dolphins to a win Sunday when they were missing a ton of keys, especially on offense.

“Disappointed, frustrating, whatever words you want to throw in there, we all feel that right now,” said Patriots captain/safety Devin McCourty, who has never been on a non-playoff team.

“Obviously it’s frustrating,” Brady’s replacement at QB, Cam Newton said. “I don’t want to dwell on the obvious. This whole season has been a tale of coming up just short. … Obviously we know what the standard is around here.”

It looked a lot better two weeks ago when the Patriots thrashed the Chargers 45-0, with defensive and special teams scores. Felt like old times.

But then reality set in a few days later vs. the Rams, and then yesterday they gave up a whopping 250 yards on the ground to the Dolphins. And in last two games the Patriots scored a whopping 15 points – all Nick Folk field goals. Cam Newton threw for 117 yards on Sunday.

Ugh.

A Patriot team that defensively can’t stop good teams and can’t score enough points on offense. Not what you expected when New England beat Miami 21-11 at Gillette in the season opener, is it?

What a difference three months can make.

“It hasn’t developed for us the whole year,” McCourty said. “Just not getting it done, week in, week out. The answer isn’t easy. … We’re not getting it done to be successful in this league. That’s what it comes down to.”

And how does that change, especially in stopping the run?

“If I had that answer, I’d gladly share it and we’d probably play better,” McCourty said, later adding, “We’re still out there practicing hard, it just hasn’t been good enough.”

What now?

“Just got to regroup and keep fighting,” McCourty said. “It’s not normal around here. … As a team, as an individual, you’ve got to keep playing. You can’t take this for granted, I’ve been saying that the last couple of weeks. We’ve got to continue to do that.

“To win. There’s nothing else, no moral victories, it’s how can we win the last two games.”

You never know, but don’t expect Jarrett Stidham to see any meaningful time. The Patriots will play, as Herm Edwards once said, to win the game. It’s clear they feel Newton is how they can do that – for now. All the future questions are for another day.

“It won’t be the same in ’21,” McCourty said. “However we want to be remembered for the rest of this year comes down to these last two weeks.”

McCourty was asked about his feelings when he says the team won’t make the playoffs.

“It sucks,” McCourty said. “But it is what it is, it’s the reality of the situation.”

Just another thing to chalk up to 2020.

Tom King may be reached at @Telegraph_TomK on twitter, or tking@nashuatelegraph.com

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