OK, so you lost. Deep down, you knew you were going to. The Ravens are bigger, stronger, faster. Besides that, you liked your chances.

Today is a day for pride and perspective. Pouting is not allowed.

Say it out loud: 1-15.

Say it again. One and Fifteen.

Now say this: AFC East champions.

Say it again. Slowly, so that you fully appreciate the leap. A-F-C East Champ-i-ons.

It's OK to smile, even after a playoff loss.

NFL.com's Pat Kirwan likes to say on our radio show, "a team has to give their fans one of two things - winning or hope."

What happens when they give you both? That's a really good year.

The Dolphins just had a really good year.

There will be many other days to talk about their shortcomings, the much tougher schedule in 2009, Parcells' future, free agency and the draft. Today is not that day.

In this 24/7 newscycle world we live in, there is a tendency to want to place an entire year's worth of achievement in a nice little box, 24 hours after the season is over. Not this time.

The 2008 Dolphins did much more than win 11 games. They regained your faith and restored your pride. These are no small feats.

For a franchise that had done nothing but overpromise and underdeliver this entire decade, this time they did it in reverse. It feels much better this way.

The incredibly soft Miami Dolphins went undefeated in December. The team usually held in as high a regard as the Pillsbury Dough Boys won their last five road games. Four of them in the last five weeks of the year.

The franchise that in the past, with much more talent, which regularly blew big games, now was winning them. Once you learn how to win, you never forget. Once you believe you will win, you never doubt yourself again.

Even Sunday, down 20-3 and unable to get a first down, the Dolphins rose up and took it to the Ravens for a while. In fact, if Ted Ginn holds on to the reverse, he turns the corner with three blockers against only two defenders, and maybe, just maybe ...

But a win Sunday was too much to ask.

A team that was 0-2, overmatched and heading to New England, went 11-3 the rest of the way and was in the playoffs.

It still feels like a dream. I keep waiting for Bobby Ewing to pull the shower curtain and tell me that I've imagined the whole thing.

For the first time since Dan Marino retired (and for some of you since Don Shula was forced out), a Dolphins fan can truly trust that the guy running the franchise knows what the heck he is doing.

For the first time in the salary cap era, the Dolphins have so much money to spend that the government may be calling them to help with the bailout.

For the first time since Ricky Williams quit to go party with Lenny Kravitz, the organization has a future.

You get the idea. 2008 was about much more than wins and losses. It was about feeling good again. It was about being taken seriously again.

You want to know why Patriots fans were rooting so hard against you Sunday? It was much more than jealousy. It was because deep down they know that for the first time since Tom Brady, you are a threat to them. The guy running your team used to run them. He took them to a Super Bowl in four years and helped groomed their guy for the success he enjoys now. You don't think they know what you are capable of?

Yes, the rest of the playoffs will go on without you. Big deal. The fact that the playoffs actually had to wait for you to jump on board was historic.

I am not going to sit here and predict a Super Bowl by 2012 or anything crazy like that. I mean Tom Brady and Peyton Manning will still be playing and Ben Roethlisberger will have not turned 30. But for the first time in a long time, the Miami Dolphins are to be taken seriously. I know you won 41 games in four years under Dave Wannstedt between 2000-2003, but no one north of I-4 took you seriously. No one. Those teams were just good enough to raise your hopes, only to dash them just as quickly.

In 2006, your future was so bleak your coach quit to go back to college. In 2007, you were a laughingstock. In 2008, you were a pretender. Albeit a playoff one.

The next step is huge. From pretender to contender. In many ways it is the harder of the two steps to climb.

That's OK. Did I mention the Patriots and Jets were watching you Sunday?

2009 is going to be much harder than 2008. Yet, you can't wait. In fact, bring it on.

The Dolphins gave you winning and hope, all in the same year.

That smile better last all the way to the draft.

David Moulton is co-host of the "Miller and Moulton in the Afternoon" radio show that airs weekdays 3-6:30 p.m. on WWCN/AM 770 ESPN. His columns appear three times a week. You can e-mail David directly at: sportsgoober@hotmail.com