For a supposedly meaningless game, this one sure had plenty of Dolphins subplots.

No wonder Sean Smith, their young cornerback, said it felt “like a movie” at times during Sunday’s 19-17 win over the Jets.

There was the Jason Taylor story line.

The Dolphins wanted to send their all-time greatest defensive player out on a winning note, and the final score certainly made that postgame ride on his teammates’ shoulders that much more memorable.

There was the Todd Bowles story line.

Yes, the Dolphins’ interim coach is an extreme longshot to be the long-term successor to Tony Sparano, but the players certainly made their case by going 2-1 on his behalf, all against division foes.

Then there was the rivalry angle.

“Just End Their Season,” read a sign one fan held aloft.

The first letters of each word were scrawled a little larger, spelling out J-E-T-S.

“No Playoffs For Rex Ryan,” read another sign at Sun Life Stadium.

Even if they had pulled this one out, the Jets needed a lot of help to reach the postseason for a third straight season under their blustery coach.

They didn’t get the Titans’ loss in Houston they needed to keep hope alive.

They did get the Bengals’ loss to the Ravens and the Broncos’ loss to the Chiefs they needed.

However, before any of those games went final, the Dolphins did their part to extinguish the hopes of their fiercest rival.

They even had Santonio Holmes huffing his way out of the Jets’ offensive huddle in frustration by the end.

“Definitely a great feeling, bro,” Dolphins defensive lineman Tony McDaniel said. “That was our motivation coming into the game, to knock our division rivals out of the playoffs. We got the deal done and kicked their butts, and we’re excited about that.”

Bowles had opened the week by laying out that very challenge for his battered team: Ground the Jets.

“They’re playing us to make the playoffs,” Bowles had said, via McDaniel. “It’s all over ESPN. We need to go out there and kick their butts and finish the year with a win.”

For a few hours Sunday, that 0-7 start that torpedoed this Dolphins season didn’t sting anymore.

Jason Taylor visited the hospital a few days before Christmas with his wife and three kids. They brought a lot of toys for kids with cancer, burn victims, children with deformities. Taylor’s children didn’t want to leave, they were having so much fun playing, connecting, giving — unwrapping, in other words, Dad’s real and lasting gifts. Later that night, over prayer, his kids thanked each of the children they met by name, and damn if that didn’t just about make the tough, old football player cry. It can make you emotional, getting old. Appreciative, too.

Looking back — something he has done a lot over the last few weeks, ever since he decided this new year would mark the beginning of the end of football — Taylor realized this: All those blessings that surrounded him in that hospital, he didn’t have any of them upon arriving in Miami as a scared, skinny kid. The wife? She is the sister of Zach Thomas, his brother in more way than one. The children? All born and raised here. Everything Taylor believes in now — family, faith and football, all of it intertwined in something not unlike a huddle — has been nourished and grown here. His gratitude, his platform, everything that makes him who he is. Miami isn’t just the home of his Foundation. It is the home of his foundation.

Giving back

He attempts to give back, raising almost $3 million for poor kids, sending 35 single-parent kids to college with all expenses paid, but he knows his is a debt that’ll never really get repaid. It is something his mentor Marino taught him, one of so many things, and Marino has an entire hospital for children in his name. The most amazing part of what we are celebrating today? In what is otherwise a meaningless football game? It isn’t that, in an era of unprecedented player movement, at a time when the Dolphins have changed coaches, owners and even stadium names multiple times during Taylor’s career, South Florida got to watch Taylor grow from kid to man like parents at a graduation. No, it is the ital:kind:ital of man we have watched him grow into, someone for whom you want to cheer, after coming from a childhood background so broken and painful that he doesn’t like discussing its details and it can bring him to tears if the questions get too close.

The thing that makes Taylor feel proudest? There’s a library to go through after a decade and a half in the sport. He’s the best defender the Dolphins have ever had. He’s scored more touchdowns than anyone to ever play his position. He was the NFL’s Defensive Player Of The Year once and finished second another year. He’d be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and in the best-ever discussion, if he’d had exactly the same career in New England. But proudest?

Being Named NFL Man Of The Year for his charitable works helping giving kids opportunities, education and a path.

“It overshadows everything,” he says. “I know how much it helped me when I was a kid — that someone helped, that someone cared. This game provides you power. Impact lives. Make days. It takes five seconds. Shake a hand. Give a football. I don’t take that for granted. I can’t.”

‘i’ll be emotional’

Today should feel really good. Gratitude always does. In sports, very few get to choose their own ending, as even legends like Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno learned. For players, the uniform usually gets taken from you before you get a chance to give it back, confidence the last thing to go, the mirror the last thing to know. You know the most fun former safety John Lynch ever had playing football? It wasn’t winning a championship in Tampa, believe it or not, and it wasn’t any of the nine years he went to the Pro Bowl. It was in a preseason game, as a Patriot. You don’t remember him as a Patriot? That’s because he never played a regular-season game for New England. Bill Belichick told Lynch that he had made the team, but Lynch knew he had nothing left. So all he asked for at the end was to play the entire final exhibition game. And there he was, in the fourth quarter, playing against nobodies, blitzing on every down, ignoring the play calls and a lifetime of regimen as Belichick laughed from the sideline.

“I will be playing football as a kid again,” Taylor says of today. “It’ll be emotional. I’m going to try to hold it together the best I can.”

He has been on a snap count all year because of his age and has been allowed to sit out practices, too. But he has asked coaches to let him play every down today, and they have agreed.

“I don’t want to come out,” he says. “I want every last drop. I want to soak in every detail. I want to come out only if I’m tired.”

Jason, you aren’t going to get too tired to come out.

“Damn right I’m not,” he says.

There are things he won’t miss about football, of course. Training camps. The dirty business side of the game. And all the losing. But days like today, there is nothing to replace them in the silence of retirement.

“I’m at peace,” Taylor says. “It is an honor to go out like this in Miami.”

The honor, watching a lost and scared kid grow into a pillar of a man, has been ours.

Jason Taylor’s ready to hang it up, while the New York Jets are desperate to keep playing.

Taylor plans to retire after Sunday’s season finale for the Miami Dolphins. They’ll try to send him out with a win against the Jets, who need a victory to keep alive their slim hopes of making the playoffs.

Even if the Jets win, to earn a postseason berth they’ll also need losses Sunday by Cincinnati, Tennessee and either Denver or Oakland.

“This is the first time I have ever been in a situation like this,” said receiver Plaxico Burress, a 10-year veteran. “If we do get in, great. If things don’t work out, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.”

The Jets (8-7) lost control of their destiny when they were beaten last week by the Giants 29-14. Now the Jets are in danger of missing the playoffs after reaching the AFC championship game each of the past two years, and elimination could come at the hands of the AFC East rival Dolphins (5-10).

“It would be beautiful to ruin their playoff dreams,” Miami defensive end Kendall Langford said. “We’re playing for pride. They’re playing for a playoff spot.”

The teams meet in a regular-season finale for the first time since 2008, when the Dolphins won to clinch their only division title since 2000. That game eliminated the Jets from playoff contention.

This year the Dolphins have been consigned to a spoiler’s role since Halloween, thanks to their 0-7 start. Taylor’s retirement announcement this week provided some additional motivation for the last game.

The NFL’s active sack leader spent 13 of his 15 seasons with Miami, made the Pro Bowl six times and ranks with the greatest players in franchise history.

“His presence will be missed, not only in our locker room, but in this organization,” receiver Brandon Marshall said. “Those guys are once-in-a-lifetime guys. We would love for him to go out with a win.”

Coincidentally, Taylor played last season for the Jets before rejoining the Dolphins.

“He was a great teammate, and we loved having him here,” Jets tight end Dustin Keller said. “But they’re going to want to send him off with a big win, and we can’t let that happen. We know what kind of player he is and what he’s capable of, and we can’t let him disrupt the game.”

Taylor has 16½ of his 139½ sacks against the Jets, although he managed none when the teams met in October. New York won 24-6, and while the Dolphins have been a much better team lately, they’ll be without 1,000-yard rusher Reggie Bush because of a knee injury.

The Dolphins took a 17-point lead at New England last week before losing 27-24, which left them 0-5 in games decided by a field goal or less. The Jets’ loss to the Giants carried even more sting, because it may wind up costing them a playoff berth.

Coach Rex Ryan declared months ago that these Jets are even more talented than the two teams he took to the AFC title game. But New York has given up 74 points while losing the past two games, and the offense was so out of sorts against the Giants that Mark Sanchez was forced to throw a career-high 59 passes. The Jets rank 27th in the NFL in yardage, stirring speculation about offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s job security.

With typical bravado, Ryan insisted the season might yet be salvaged.

“We can do some damage if we get into the playoffs,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, because I think we play excellent defense, I think we can run the football, and I think that’s what you have to do this time of year.”

But getting to the postseason is now a long shot. Three of the other games that will determine the Jets’ fate are late starts Sunday, which means that if they win, the Jets will likely be flying home when they learn whether their season is over.

“We’re just focused on the things we can control, and that’s trying to play well against Miami and coming up with a win,” Sanchez said. “After that, we’ll see what happens. Hopefully we get a win and on the plane we find out everything worked out in our favor. But all we can control is winning.”

The Dolphins, meanwhile, are bound for another offseason of change. Coach Tony Sparano was fired Dec. 12, and the next coach will be Miami’s seventh since the start of 2004. With a losing record for the third consecutive year — the Dolphins’ first such stretch since the 1960s — a roster shake-up is likely, too.

Given his team’s situation, the 37-year-old Taylor decided the time was right to call it quits. He’ll do it after playing his 204th game for the Dolphins, more than anyone aside from Dan Marino.

“It’s great to have a chance to walk away in front of your home crowd in a city that means a lot to you against an opponent that you’ve had a tremendous history against,” Taylor said. “I want to win the game, but not so I can say I won my last game. This is not about Jason Taylor and my career. There are guys in the locker room that are fighting for jobs, fighting for their futures, auditioning for their next jobs. So I’m just a small piece of this team train. I’m going to do my part Sunday to help win.”

Current and former Miami Dolphins players discussed the charitable contributions of retiring Dolphins standout Jason Taylor during the annual 3Cinteractive JT’s Ping-Pong Smash at the Hard Rock Live near Hollywood.

The event benefited the Jason Taylor Foundation, whose mission is to support and create programs that facilitate the personal growth and empowerment of South Florida’s children in need by focusing on improved health care, education and quality of life.

Taylor and his wife Katina — like former Miami Heat star Alonzo Mourning and his wife Tracy — continue to help better the community. Staples in South Florida, they provide opportunity for the area’s youth.

Usually athletes host golf tournaments or bowling events, but ping-pong is a unique charity concept, pairing business people with athletes and celebrities.

The event offered a good mix of talent including current and former Miami Dolphins, former Florida Marlins, DJs and radio personalities. Taylor, a former NFL Defensive Player of the Year, plays his final game on Sunday against the rival New York Jets.

• Miami Dolphins defensive end Ryan Baker said: “It’s really cool seeing all these celebrities out here, interacting with all these kids and playing ping-pong. It’s real competitive, but we’re having a great time for a great cause.”

How was your ping-pong game?

“It was rusty at the beginning,” Baker said, “but I picked it up and did real well.”

What’s it like being involved in charity event and giving back to the community?

“Well, Jason’s the king at that,” Baker said. “He does a great job, and I like to take notes at what he does. So hopefully I can do that for the Ryan Baker Foundation.”

• Former Miami Dolphins tight end and South Florida radio and television sports personality Joe Rose said: “This is a lot of fun. It’s a different type of a charity event than we usually do. It’s a different atmosphere, a different environment and everybody can play. So it’s a great time, and also it’s nice to see the active players and a lot of the former players here.”

Rose’s ping-pong game is pretty good.

Rose said: “Not really. My game is not very good. I wish it was better.”

• Former Miami Dolphins receiver Randal Thrill Hill had a smile on his game face.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s all about the kids, but I like competition. I don’t care if it’s ping-pong or anything. So being able to help the kids is added fun for me, because it’s all about the competition — whether it be ping-pong, jacks, hop-scotch. I don’t care. It’s all about winning and having fun.

“I’ve won [JT’s Ping-Pong Smash] a couple of years. I’ve been in it four years. Two years I didn’t have a good partner.”

• Miami Dolphins linebacker Karlos Dansby said: “It was an awesome event. I had a blast — giving back to the community and having fun with the fellas. I loved it.”

Dansby wanted to reach the final round.

“My [ping-pong] game was OK,” he said. “Unfortunately I didn’t make it to the last round, but it’s OK. I did all right.”

Assistant coaches live life on the injury report.

Outside of the “out” section — where Dolphins running back Reggie Bush sits for Sunday’s game with the Jets — the injury report lists uncertainties: questionable, probable, doubtful. That’s the lot of NFL assistant coaches even more so than head coaches, especially assistant coaches on staffs such as the Dolphins, where everybody knows change is coming.

Their approach to living with job insecurity could be summed up in the words of that fictional Miami Beach resident Hyman Roth: This is the business we’ve chosen. Or, for those whose taste run less Godfather and more Super Chicken: You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.

“If you don’t know what you’re getting into to begin with, then don’t be a coach,” Dolphins defensive coordinator Mike Nolan said.

Dolphins interim coach Todd Bowles, an NFL player for eight seasons and NFL coach for 12, said, “You kind of know what you’re signed up for when you come into this business. As a former player and coach for 10-plus years, all you can control is coaching your guys and make sure they’re ready to play. The decisions that you don’t make can’t affect you, so you just go ahead and coach. You’re true to yourself and you’re true to your coaching; you understand that you’ll be around somewhere.”

While Nolan said he found the changes sometimes “exciting,” he admitted, “I think it bothers you when you have children, from a family standpoint. Because that’s really who’s affected the most. But outside of that, my kids are out of the house now.

“If you’re a homebody, or if you want to be in one place all the time, get a high school job, get something that’s close to home,” he continued. “The NFL’s not for you. You’re going to move. Take the good with the bad.”

Nobody knows better than Nolan. Before being an NFL assistant and head coach the past 25 seasons, he was raised in the home of Dick Nolan, an assistant in Dallas under Tom Landry before being a head coach in San Francisco (1968-75) and New Orleans (1978-80).

“Without question, it helped a lot,” Nolan said. “It helped my wife, it helped my family because she knew what she was getting into at the time.”

Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll’s family, wife and four children, is younger than Nolan’s and Daboll’s on his third team in four seasons. But the prospect of another move doesn’t cause him angst.

“You don’t focus on that,” Daboll said. “You’ve really got to focus what you can control, which is trying to get prepared for the New York Jets and doing the same meetings you have and studying as much film as you have.’’

None of the three wished they had chosen a more stable profession that wouldn’t include so much upheaval, the vast majority of which gets handled by their spouses.

“I wish I hit the Powerball,” Bowles laughed. “Other than that, no, I love the game.

“If I hit the Powerball in lotto, I would be like the guy on [ The] Shawshank [ Redemption]. I’ll have a boat down there on the island somewhere. I’ll be good to go. You’ll never hear from me again.”

Bush to miss finale

Bush showed he can be an every-down back this season with the Dolphins with 1,086 rushing yards and averaging 5.0 yards per carry.

But he’ll fall short of being an every-game back as he’ll miss Sunday’s season finale against the Jets with a knee injury. The Dolphins held Bush out of practice all week.

“He hasn’t been responding, so we’re going to sit him down,” said Bowles, who also said the same move would have been made had this been another point in the season instead of the finale.

Bush played all 16 games only in his rookie season, 2006, with New Orleans. This season’s 216 carries in 15 games exceed by four his past three seasons — but only 32 games — combined. His combined 259 carries and catches raised his career high from the 243 of his rookie season.

Cornerback Jimmy Wilson (hamstring) is doubtful for Sunday. Linebacker Karlos Dansby returned to practice Friday after dealing with a family emergency.

Arrive early

• The Dolphins ask that fans be in their seats by 12:45 for a pregame ceremony honoring outside linebacker Jason Taylor, who is retiring after 15 NFL seasons, 13 of which were with the Dolphins.

• Safety Yeremiah Bell was voted the 2011 Good Guy Award by the South Florida media who covers the Dolphins daily. The award honors a player for exemplary cooperation with the media over the course of a season and is given by each local Pro Football Writers Association chapter.