INDIANAPOLIS -- THE PAIN as evident on his face as it was on his ankle, despite his prideful attempts to hide the hurt all night, the man who was half a step away from answering Tom Brady’s Hail Mary prayer at the end of Super Bowl XLVI refused to say just how close he came to delivering a miracle.

“I was close,” Rob Gronkowski said, and repeated several times during his postgame press briefing, “but close doesn’t mean anything. Close isn’t the goal.”

Close wasn’t the goal on that pass, as the tight end stressed. And close wasn’t the goal of the game, as his teammates insisted in near unison. When Brady’s heave landed just beyond Gronkowski’s last-hope lunge, and when the Giants won 21-17, the result was the

Not good enough.

“Close doesn’t get it, man. Almost doesn’t get it, either,” said safety Patrick Chung. “They played a good game. They finished the game. We didn’t. It is what it is, man.”

It is a disappointment, say the Patriots, because they began Sunday with the same purpose they began the season. They wanted to be world champions. They believed they were good enough to be world champions. They expected to be world champions.

So when those wants, beliefs and expectations all came crashing down in the end zone that bore their logo for Sunday night, it meant with certainty that their mission would go unfulfilled. A division championship, the AFC’s best record and a conference title are all well and good.

But, again, not good enough.

“Ahh,” offensive guard Brian Waters uttered when asked if the season was a success, then answered bluntly after giving it brief consideration. “No.”

Part of it, particularly for the veterans who’ve been around Foxborough a few years, is that the players feel like they failed the memory of Myra Kraft, in whose name they dedicated this season. “The season was about her,” receiver Deion Branch said, “and we didn’t get the job done this year.”

But the greater lament was that by failing to seize the moment on several occasions Sunday, they missed an opportunity they never get again. Another year of Brady’s prime has passed fruitlessly. Bill Belichick is one year closer to retirement. Some of these players won’t be in New England next season. Others will return in different roles.

Though to truly understand the magnitude of the opportunity lost on Sunday night, think of the record Brady tied in that game. Simply by taking the field, he matched John Elway as the only quarterbacks ever to start five Super Bowls — so as much as his two failed attempts to become the game’s third four-time champion shows just how difficult it is to win the game, until now it’s been historically harder to get to the game five times than it’s been to win it four.

It may not seem so, after five trips in 11 seasons, but these appearances are not to be taken for granted. To a man — to a dejected, despondent, discouraged man — the Patriot players seemed to understand that as they trudged dutifully to the podiums in the basement of Lucas Oil Stadium. A few let their eyes talk as they fought tears. A few verbalized their disappointment. Wes Welker did both. But everybody felt pretty much the same.

Not good enough.

“Our goal was to win a championship,” said running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis, “and we came up short.”

They came up short early and too often against New York. They knew they had chances to be difference-makers and they didn’t deliver. They knew they were uncharacteristically sloppy at times. They knew the Giants didn’t play great but were sharpest when presented a chance to plunge the knife into the Patriots’ heart.

In the first 63 seconds of his postgame chat with reporters, Aaron Hernandez used the phrase “make plays” seven times — which is probably more than the number of plays the Patriots would’ve had to make differently in order to change the outcome.

Had Welker held onto the ball when broken coverage left him open in the fourth quarter, the Patriots would’ve been just a couple first downs from killing the clock. Had Brady been smarter and not unnecessarily launched a first-down bomb that became an interception, the offense might’ve found its rhythm in the fourth quarter and scored again. Had Chung not cheated slightly in the other direction, perhaps he breaks up the 38-yard pass Eli Manning to Mario Manningham that set up the winning score.

And had Gronkowski been half a step over, and a little bit healthier, maybe a miracle answers the Pats’ prayers. Maybe he grabs it. Maybe New England wins. Maybe the Patriots have a championship to show for going 27-5 over the past two regular seasons. He was close. They were close.

But that just was not good enough.

Dave D’Onofrio covers the Patriots for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. His e-mail address is ddonof13@gmail.com.