It was, in many ways, a season to be proud of.

Despite 14 players landing on injured reserve, including stars, starters and key reserves, the New England Patriots rallied over the final month of the season to post an 11-5 record, the type of mark that would earn a team a playoff berth in any other season but this one.

But the five losses were all to division opponents, and when it came to the tiebreaker, that was the killer. And in those losses, the beleaguered secondary was often the culprit — and that was an issue because the loss of Asante Samuel wasn’t adequately accounted for by a front office that otherwise has many more hits than misses.

With all that in mind, here’s some of the highs and lows from the 2008 Patriots season:

•Worst Moment: Chief Bernard Pollard’s hit on Tom Brady’s left knee wasn’t just the worst moment for the Patriots this season — it was one of the worst in the NFL. The league’s reigning MVP, coming off a season for the ages, saw his 2008 campaign ended before it ever really started. There’s no way to quantify or predict how the Brady-less Patriots were affected by his not being on the field every day and for every game, and suffice it to say they’d rather not have to find out again.

•Moment Worse than the Worst Moment: The instant a Pittsburgh Steelers fan thought it would be funny to start a Bernard Pollard Fan Club, complete with Web site and T-shirts. Hard to believe that was thought through.

•Best Impression of Superman: Matt Cassel isn’t Brady, but he did a more than admirable job filling in for the superstar quarterback, overcoming a couple of early rough patches to finish strong. The quarterback many thought New England didn’t need on Sept. 1 (yours truly included) may have saved the season, and finds himself in the position to take full advantage of it.

•Worst Reaction to a Surprise: The first time Miami unveiled the Wildcat formation, on Sept. 21 in Foxboro, was one of the rare times in recent years that the Patriots have been caught totally off-guard — or when have you ever heard Richard Seymour say, “We were running around like chickens with our heads cut off”?

•Best Revenge: It was almost a given that New England would shut down the Wildcat when it played the Dolphins in Miami on Nov. 23, and that’s just what happened: Miami gained 25 yards on eight plays out of the formation that day, as opposed to 100 rushing yards (and three touchdowns) plus a passing TD by Ronnie Brown on just six plays in the September meeting.

•Worst Example of How to Deal with the Enemy: One can only imagine the grabbing, talking and possibly worse that happens in the trenches. But the image of Matt Light wailing away on the helmet-less head of Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder after a field goal was a memorable moment for all the wrong reasons.

•Best Proof of a Myth: There was a long-held belief — outside of the Patriots’ offices, clearly — that New England didn’t draft linebackers in the high rounds because the defensive scheme was too difficult for a rookie to grasp. But Jerod Mayo and Gary Guyton proved that notion wrong. Mayo started from Day One and won NFL defensive rookie-of-the-year honors, and Guyton’s role grew with each passing week.

•Best Bid to Star in the Remake of Groundhog Day: Line Wes Welker up anywhere on the field and watch him make at least six catches. The diminutive wideout set a league record by recording six or more grabs in each of the first 11 games, and streak ended only because he was nearly decapitated by the Steelers’ Ryan Clark in Game 12.

•Worst Bid to Star in the Remake of Groundhog Day: Let’s put the positive up front: Benjamin Watson’s blocking has improved a great deal. But the former first-round pick had a number of dropped passes and missed catches this year, and he fumbled at a key time in the loss to the Jets.

•Best Use of 76 Inches: Randy Moss needed every bit of his 6-foot-4 frame to pull in an overtime-forcing touchdown from Cassel against the Jets. Moss stretched for the ball while somehow keeping his toes pinned to the turf for what seemed at the time was the play that would swing things in New England’s favor.

•Worst Time for a Blown Coverage: Jets, overtime, third-and-15. No further explanation needed.

•Classiest Exit: Troy Brown was the consummate professional and team player during his career with the Patriots, and it was impossible to think his retirement would be anything different. After a tear-filled news conference during which even Bill Belichick seemed to get a little choked up, and Brown conceded that his reluctance to curb his Baskin-Robbins appetite was one of the signals that it was time to hang up his cleats, the franchise’s all-time receptions leader got a chance in November to be feted in front of the fans who adored him. Brown wrote a thank-you letter to the faithful that was in the night’s game program; he expressed gratitude for the way they made him feel “right at home” from his earliest days with the Pats.

•Offensive MVP: Welker. It was easy to see his impact when he wasn’t on the field for the final quarter-plus against Pittsburgh, and his performance against Seattle a week later was a tour de force.

•Defensive MVP: Vince Wilfork. It wasn’t the best year for New England’s defense, but Wilfork’s ability to take on multiple blockers allowed a healthy Richard Seymour to return to wreaking havoc.

•Most Improved: Brandon Meriweather. The second-year safety’s hard work in the offseason paid off, as he pulled in four interceptions and by the end of the season, quarterbacks had learned not to throw in his direction too often. And once Rodney Harrison went down, Meriweather stepped up and never came off the field.