SAN DIEGO -- Here are the cold, hard facts of the NFL playoffs: You can be lucky and win, but if you don't play smart, you lose.

The Chargers put on one of their dumbest performances of the season Sunday afternoon, draining all the joy out of a 14-2 regular season.

Today, the Chargers will take their physicals to signal another end of a season that was supposed to end in Miami.

All that talk about going to the Super Bowl should wait until the Chargers win at least one playoff game.

That hasn't happened in San Diego since Bill Clinton was president, back in January 1995.

As you know, the New England Patriots came to town and stole a 24-21 victory at Qualcomm Stadium, thanks in part to the brilliant play of quarterback Tom Brady.

If you look closer at what happened in this game, blame the players for some knucklehead moves.

Some of their mistakes were physical. The receivers dropped six passes. The defenders dropped three balls that should have been intercepted. The Chargers lost three balls on fumbles, and quarterback Philip Rivers threw one interception.

Then there were the mental miscues -- two unnecessary-roughness flags and an interception that shouldn't have happened.

Add it all up, and the Chargers didn't play well enough to advance.

The Chargers held an eight-point lead with just under seven minutes to play. On a fourth-and-5 at the Chargers' 41-yard line, Brady tossed a pass into the arms of Chargers safety Marlon McCree at the 31.

Instead of batting the ball down, McCree, one of the more cerebral players on the team, grabbed the interception and headed up the field, where he immediately fumbled. New England recovered.

"I thought we had the game right there," Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson said.

Instead, New England capitalized on the play and scored a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie the scored 21-12.

When asked whether he considered knocking the ball down, which would have given the Chargers a first down at their 41, McCree said no.

"I was trying to make a play, and any time I get the ball I am going to try and score," McCree said. "If it's a two-minute situation, that is the only time I will try and knock the ball down."

McCree should have realized that with Tomlinson running the ball -- he had 123 yards on 23 carries -- all the Bolts needed were a couple of first downs to run out the clock and end the game.

In the third quarter, the Chargers held New England on third down at the Chargers' 29. But cornerback Drayton Florence popped Daniel Graham, drawing an unnecessary-roughness penalty. That gave the Patriots a first down that led to an easy 34-yard field goal by rookie Stephen Gostkowski.

Even when the Chargers did something well, they couldn't stand prosperity.

After Tomlinson scored and Nate Kaeding added the extra point to put the Chargers up 21-13 in the fourth quarter, tackle Shane Olivea was tagged with a personal foul that forced the Chargers to kick off from their 20. The Patriots started their game-tying drive at their 37 instead of deep in their own territory.

"The personal-foul penalties were very disappointing," Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer said, "because what you end up doing there is you put your own personal feelings ahead of the football team."

Olivea offered his own excuse.

"I was told the penalty was on someone else," Olivea said. "I didn't throw a punch. I saw two guys take a shot at Roman (Oben) when he was down and on his back, and I wasn't going to let them do that. I waited for the referee to do something, but he didn't. So I took things into my own hands. It's just a really disappointing feeling right now."

It should be. Olivea didn't keep his poise, and it cost the Bolts.

Conventional wisdom says that the team that scores first has a better than 50 percent chance of winning in the playoffs. Schottenheimer put himself under the gun on the Chargers' second series of the game when he didn't let Kaeding try a 47-yard field goal.

Instead, Schottenheimer went for it on fourth-and-11, not the highest of odds.

"I thought we had a play that we could use that would make the yardage," Schottenheimer explained. "Our intention was to be very aggressive."

The Bolts at times were very aggressive, but in the final analysis, they couldn't overcome their own mistakes. That's why this loss will linger for a long, long time. And it will probably cost Schottenheimer his job.

Steve Scholfield is senior sports columnist for the North County Times. He can be reached at (760) 740-3509 or stevescho@cox.net. Comment at sports.nctimes.com.