Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown sat in his locker just after taking a postgame shower, still wearing only a towel as he picked tiny pieces of loose skin off his forearm. He turned to teammate Patrick Cobbs, showing him how his thumb bent backward on one play during Monday night's 27-23 loss to the Colts on Monday.

``One hell of a game,'' whispered offensive coordinator Dan Henning, patting Brown twice on his bare shoulder and then walking away.

``Appreciate it,'' Brown whispered back.

Despite a rushing performance that accounted for 239 yards, despite possessing the ball for more than 45 minutes of a 60-minute game, despite Brown's pounding and grinding and hammering of the Colts' defense, the Dolphins could not escape defeat.

They could not escape quarterback Peyton Manning's perfect fourth quarter, when he completed six of seven throws including a 48-yard touchdown pass with 3:29 left in the game to give Indianapolis a 27-23 lead.

On the first anniversary of the day the Dolphins unveiled the Wildcat, not even Brown's sensational performance out of the same wildly popular play package would be enough to stifle Indianapolis' big-play ability.

Nor could Miami overcome the strange clock management during its final drive on offense that would burn 47 seconds off the clock as confusion with what personnel groupings should have been on the field still resulted in a timeout being called.

``I have to take responsibility for that,'' coach Tony Sparano said. ``We had the wrong personnel grouping in. We needed to take the timeout at that point.''

So on the first anniversary of the day the Dolphins unveiled the Wildcat, not even Brown's sensational performance would be enough to stifle Indianapolis' big-play ability.

After 3 ½ quarters in which the Dolphins battered away with a perfectly executed ground attack, the Dolphins had the Colts exactly where they wanted them -- even in the wake of several big catches by tight end Dallas Clark that kept the game close.

``How many times have you seen games like that where your team has the ball for 45 minutes and they run 39 plays and you have 229 yards rushing and you're 13 for 18 on third-down conversions?'' Sparano said. ``It is exactly the formula to beat that team.''

The Dolphins had a chance to answer Manning's fourth-quarter brilliance with 3:13 and two timeouts to drive the distance. After burning 47 seconds between plays, and still using a timeout, Miami then chewed away more of the clock by running the ball up the middle.

Miami then failed to get off another play before the two-minute warning. Once the team began to get some momentum, bad fate continued when Pennington threw a deep pass into the end zone toward Ted Ginn Jr.

The ball bounced off Ginn's hands -- almost the way a volleyball player would set a spike -- as the Dolphins' chances of a win fell to the field. With six seconds left, Pennington had one more chance. He threw an interception into the end zone to Antonie Bethea.

For so long, it seemed like this party was going to end so well. It seemed as if no celebrity in Land Shark Stadium would provide as much glitz or glamour as Brown. And you could be sure none of those pretty people in the crowd would have been on Brown's guest list for the after-party before the names of Miami's five starting offensive linemen, who bounced back from a poor performance against Atlanta.

It was the kind of smash-mouth football that surely made vice president of football operations Bill Parcells proud. And it was the type of invigorating performance that would have easily washed away those memories of last week's four-turnover loss to the Falcons.

But it would nonetheless end with the same, unbearable result.

``It's a tough one to take across the chin,'' linebacker Joey Porter said. ``It was a great opportunity. The offense had them real tired. But they made more plays than we did.''