“We’re not dumb,” Tannehill said, “We know [the Pats] have a high-powered offense and that we have to score more points than we did.”

Hartline accepted blame for his unit more directly.

“We fell short on our end offensively,” he said.

The bottom line of Sunday’s results is that the bottom line has not changed, at least not yet:

The Patriots are still in charge in the AFC East.

And the Dolphins are still chasing.

A rare near-sellout crowd of 72,114 was full-throated in trying to will a Dolphins victory — well, except the thousands cheering for New England — but not even the uncommon intensity and volume of the crowd could lift the home team.

The Pats are still this division’s gold standard.

And the Dolphins are still chasing.

Miami last won a conference championship and reached a Super Bowl in ever-receding 1984.

The Pats win them so routinely — Brady has three rings and might not be finished — that receiver Wes Welker, when asked after the game what winning the conference means, half-joked, “It’s kinda just another hat and T-shirt.”

Something has to change if the Dolphins are to make their move toward consistent playoff contention. Maybe that will come if and when Tannehill blossoms into a star. Maybe it won’t come until Brady, showing zero sign of decline at age 35, finally retires.

In any case it has to start with Miami claiming command in its own division, against the one team it most has to beat.

The New York Jets always stir more emotion (and noise) as Miami’s supposed fiercest rival, but everybody in Miami’s locker room knows who the real nemesis is.

That’s why Reggie Bush said after Sunday’s loss, “This is a game we wanted to win bad. It meant a lot of things for us.”

It might have meant the first hint of a changing of the guard.

Instead it only reminded that the Patriots are still the team Miami wants to be when it grows up.