EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – While the difference between 11-5 and 1-15 can be as simple as the placement of a dash, the story of this season was about the movement of a quarterback for the Miami Dolphins.

Led by the soft-tossing and heavily disrespected Chad Pennington, the Dolphins completed one of the greatest turnarounds in NFL history, tying the league record of a 10-game improvement.

In the process, the Dolphins won the AFC East, capping the feat by beating the team that should be holding the crown. Miami handed the New York Jets a 24-17 loss that ended New York's season with an exclamation mark. The Jets, who dumped Pennington in favor of Brett Favre, watched their former leader return to his former home and prove his worthiness.

Meanwhile, Favre proved to be worthless.

Throw in the failure of coach Eric Mangini, who might not want to take a seat for fear of getting burned, and this game had the makings of a Greek tragedy.

Not that Pennington strutted in victory.

"It's not a revenge

While cries of unfairness coming from Patriots Nation are likely to fall mostly on deaf ears outside of Massachusetts these days, Sunday's finales could lead to more questions about the current divisional and playoff formats.

Not only is it possible that the New England Patriots could miss the playoffs at 11-5, but there's the potential that two of the NFL's eight division winners will be mediocre 8-8.

The Patriots' flattening of the Cards ultimately might not matter.

(US Presswire/David Butler II)

The Arizona Cardinals, who didn't do much more than warm up the team bus on their way to getting waxed 47-7 on Sunday at New England, and the San Diego Chargers, if they beat Denver, will win their respective NFC and AFC West divisions with eight wins. No team has won a division at 8-8 since the Cleveland Browns captured the AFC Central in 1985.

Meanwhile, even if the Patriots beat the Buffalo Bills to reach 11 wins, they'll miss the playoffs if the Miami Dolphins and Baltimore Ravens

IRVING, Texas – The Dallas Cowboys, both old and new, said their goodbyes to Texas Stadium.

And likely most, if not all, of the coaching staff did also as the Dallas season took an abrupt and ugly turn Saturday night in the form of a 33-24 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

Dallas was inept on offense for the better part of four quarters. When its offense finally did wake up, the defense turned horrid, giving up touchdown runs of 77 and 82 yards in the final four minutes. In short, this game was an implosion on a night when it was supposed to be part of a celebration.

Baltimore (10-5) turned Dallas owner Jerry Jones' hope for a homecoming event into a wake. It was Jones who, according to stories going around the NFL, requested of the league that Baltimore be the visiting team in this game rather than one of the "tougher" teams such as the New York Giants, Philadelphia or Washington.

But by the end, Jones was gripped with quiet anger as he watched the final two minutes tick away. So much so

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – If, like many Americans, you don't get the NFL Network or weren't tuned in Thursday night, you missed a couple of special moments.

Former Jacksonville Jaguars offensive linemen Richard Collier, whose career ended after being paralyzed as a result of a shooting days before the season opener, sat in his wheelchair at midfield for the pregame coin flip. After that stirring moment, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning put on a tribute to recently deceased Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh with a performance that might have thrust Manning into the lead for Most Valuable Player.

Manning led the Colts (11-4) into the playoffs after a listless start by everyone but him. Indianapolis rebounded from an early two-touchdown deficit to take a 31-24 victory over the Jaguars at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium. In the process, the Colts won their eighth straight after a 3-4 start, clinching the top wild-card spot in the AFC. Indianapolis will likely play the winner of the AFC West

CHARLOTTE – DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart are really more Hardy Boys than Hardy Boyz.

Williams and Stewart, the Carolina Panthers' highly effective 1-2 punch at running back, are a coach's dream: two talented guys at the same position who don't fuss about carries or worry about their statistics. They're more interested in solving the mystery of how to win than strut around.

While that makes for a wonderful, warm-hearted and Pollyanna parallel with Frank and Joe Hardy, the fictional brothers who have been fighting the same basic crime for 80 years, Williams and Stewart have arrived at this partnership partly because of their shared interest in the Hardy Boyz. They would be the real-life wrestling brothers Matt and Jeff, who spend their time strutting to metal-head music in the look-at-me spotlight of the WWE.

"Those are my guys," said Williams, with a whimsical grin on his face.

Stewart stands alone after his TD against the Broncos.

(AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

He then gave a

It's a rough time to be an NFC running back if you're trying to make the Pro Bowl.

"That's some tough competition," said Carolina assistant head coach Jim Skipper, who handles the running backs for the Panthers. "There are some worthy guys who made it in there."

And worthy guys who didn't make it. Such as his own leading rusher, DeAngelo Williams, who is averaging a stunning Barry Sanders-like 5.5 yards per carry. But with the likes of Minnesota's Adrian Peterson, Clinton Portis of Washington and Michael Turner of Atlanta, the argument for who should and shouldn't go is difficult, to say the least.

"Yeah, you throw Brandon Jacobs in there and then you still have Brian Westbrook and, if he wasn't hurt, Frank Gore. Man that's tough," Skipper said Tuesday, shortly after the Pro Bowl team was named.

Or as one AFC executive said after going over the NFC depth chart at running back for the Pro Bowl: "You're not just talking about Pro Bowlers, you're talking about guys in discussion for MVP."

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Suddenly, the debate about the best team in football doesn't begin in Manhattan and end in the swamps of Jersey.

On Sunday, the Carolina Panthers threw their name into the hat of discussion with a 30-10 thumping of Denver. Even when the Tennessee Titans were undefeated, the Super Bowl champion New York Giants were deemed to be the league's best following one dominating effort after another.

But as the days count down to the official start of winter, the Giants (11-3) have cooled and the Panthers (11-3) have become an attractive option to discuss, the way many retiring New Yorkers point their cars to North Carolina in winter these days.

Of course, folks in Pittsburgh and Tennessee might take exception. But as impressive as the Steelers have or as consistent the Titans have been, it's hard to get enthralled with teams that play offense as if this was still the coal-mining era of the NFL.

In the span of seven days, the Panthers demolished Tampa Bay and the Broncos with a

In the great 1984 rock 'n roll mockumentary "This is Spinal Tap," there's a running gag about how the band constantly loses drummers to spontaneous combustion. As the band is playing, the drummer suddenly goes up in a puff of smoke.

In 2008, the Broncos are going through a real-life version of this at running back. The only difference: the Spinal Tap drummers usually lasted longer.

Hillis is the latest Broncos runner to go down.

(AP Photo/David Zalubowksi)

Including the loss of running back Peyton Hillis, who was shelved this week with a torn hamstring that may require surgery and two months to heal, the Broncos now have five running backs on IR. If that weren't absurd enough, projected starter Selvin Young has one carry over the past eight games as he tries to recuperate from a torn groin.

For the Broncos and the rest of the NFL, such injury situations are often simply too much to overcome. While there are many great stories about NFL teams overcoming the loss of significant