It was easier this time.

Not because the Mets “collapsed” in 2008. SNY’s Ted Berg gives a good case for why the Mets did not collapse, and after reading it, it really started to bug me when ESPN could not talk about the Mets missing the playoffs without using the word “collapse.”

Grant it, they were just as brutal on the Chicago Cubs on Saturday. (I think it’s hilarious that the Cubs were swept. Like Andrew Beaton, I don’t buy the “lovable loser” moniker either, and somewhere along the way, I grew to want to see the Cubs lose. Maybe it’s all the media attention. Regardless, the best team in the National League was swept in three games. Hilarious.)

It’s not because I didn’t think the Mets would get out of the first round. While I was pessimistic, for sure, I could see the Mets pulling what the Dodgers pulled this week. Everything changes in October. We’ve seen it before.

It’s not even because I thought the 2008 Mets couldn’t get the job done on the final weekend. I honestly thought maybe they could.

It was simply because it had happened before.

For some reason, 2007 feels so much worse than 2008, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because, throughout 2007, we as Mets fans deluded ourselves into thinking this was the same team as the 2006 Mets when, at least after April, they really weren’t. In 2008, after the calamity of being under .500 in June and the firing of Willie Randolph, there were no more delusions, only harsh reality.

But it’s weird because, at the same time, I don’t really buy the argument that the Mets overachieved either. No self-respecting Mets fan thought in March, with the acquisition of Johan Santana, that the Mets would be good to simply add one more win to their total and not make the playoffs again on the last weekend. Just because the Mets were terrible in June does not make those expectations go away.

Personally, I always look back on full seasons, and I think of 2008 as yet another lost opportunity. I just hope the door is not shutting, and none of us are noticing yet.

There is something really depressing about the end of this season. After the 2007 season, I felt heartbreak beacuse the NL East division crown felt entitled to the Mets after such a large lead in mid-September. This year, a playoff berth did not seem a given at all, and as a result, when the Mets did not achieve a spot, I just feel empty. I feel like another improvement year from David Wright was wasted. So were all those outings by Johan Santana. So was Jose Reyes‘ 2006-like season and Carlos Delgado’s potential last-hurrah power surge.

It feels like this team had so many extraordinary independent accomplishments but too many lineup holes and bullpen woes to get them to October.