In these moments before the end of the 2011 season, I'm feeling the reality. The end is 60 minutes of football away, and the Eagles will win or lose against the Redskins and the fans will wave goodbye from Lincoln Financial Field and the players will clean out their lockers the next day and Andy Reid will kind of answer his final media questions of the year and then, well, we melt into the offseason.

It's too early for all of this. It wasn't supposed to end this way. This part isn't in the script the Eagles drew up in the days and weeks after the 2010 playoff loss to Green Bay.

Sports don't play along with any script, though. Games take their own course of action and outcomes are often determined by the bounce of a ball and the split-second reaction of a player at a crucial time.

So we are left with this, this hollow feeling of having no playoffs. It's a terrible feeling and one that has overwhelmed me with many deep thoughts, the most dominating of which is this: I will never take the playoffs for granted, and when the Eagles won't reach the postseason, the emptiness is overwhelming.

This marks the fourth time in Andy Reid's 13 seasons that the Eagles have not made the postseason, and it is easily the most painful. In 1999, the Eagles were young and growing. In 2005, they were a train wreck of injuries and Terrell Owens-inspired drama, which served as enough of a distraction that missing the playoffs felt almost understandable.

The team that missed the playoffs wore those 1933 Throwback Jerseys and destroyed Detroit, but otherwise kind of stunk and then lost Donovan McNabb and fell out of playoff contention before a three-game run salvaged an 8-8 record and some respectability.

This season, and this disappointment, doesn't compare. I'm not one to look back -- that isn't my mindset -- and so I won't, other than to acknowledge that we all feel the same thing. Hollow. Frustrated. Angry. Disappointed. Hopeful. Curious about what is next.

Somebody said to me on Friday night, "Well, isn't that the way it's been for weeks?" No, it hasn't been that way. Until Sunday when the Giants beat the Jets, the Eagles were still alive. They still had a chance to reach the playoffs.

Now, that chance is gone. Sunday brings the chance to see Eagles football one last time, with one last opportunity to win a game. I love to win. I live to win. There is nothing better than when the Eagles win, win, win.

After that, the playoffs start and the Eagles hunker down and plan for 2012.

I don't want to ever again miss the playoffs. I want to make the playoffs and win all the games and win the Super Bowl and feel like life has been justified. I want the Lombardi Trophy.

You do, too. Playing out the string stinks. I hope and I hope again that the players feel as we do. I hope the players feel lousy deep down inside that they didn't make the playoffs. I hope the players keep feeling that way when the offseason starts and they decide when they want to run an extra sprint or take an extra rep in the weight room.

The coaches, I know how they feel. They can't work any harder, and I know they are in pain. Many of them have been here for enough years to have some of the pent-up frustration we feel.

We're all in this together through the good times, the bad times, and all of the other times. I know how you are feeling now and how you are going to feel on Sunday and in the weeks to come.

It's going to get better, and it's going to be great. The Eagles will be back next season, and they have to be better than ever. They just have to be.

For now, though, I'm hurting. Hopeful and hurting, all at once. I know that for nine of Reid's 13 seasons, this has been the most exciting time of the year. I want that feeling back more than anything else.