FOXBORO — The end does not apologize.

It does not discriminate nor relent.

It waits, with a patient cruelty, for everyone and everything; even the legends that never die.

“There’s finality in everything,” an emotional David Andrews said, “And obviously it won’t be the same next year.”

Finality hit the Patriots with the force of a nor’easter Sunday, closing their season and likely the Bill Belichick era with a snowy loss to the Jets. It capped the franchise’s worst season in more than 30 years. Underneath all the snow and swaps of three-and-out drives was a painful poetry to Belichick’s time in New England.

Because of course it was the Jets at the end. It had to be them. In a season of Patriot pain and misery, who else could hold the dagger — or be the doormat — but the stumbling, bumbling, deeply despised New York Jets?

They were there at the beginning, remember?

The Jets kicked off the Belichick era by trading him to New England in 2000. They opened the door for Tom Brady by knocking out Drew Bledsoe. They triggered the Patriots’ first scandal by reporting Belichick for illegally filming opponents’ signals; a permanent legacy stain no number of Super Bowls could wash away.

Foxboro, MA – Head Coach Bill Belichick on the field before the game at Gillette Stadium. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)

Since then, Belichick has beaten the Jets senselessly for a decade and a half, like a punching bag hanging in his office. He became New York’s grim reaper, sending his coaching counterparts — Eric Mangini, Rex Ryan, Todd Bowles and Adam Gase — to meet their end. He was unapologetic in his success, ruthless and relentless.

But pending the outcome of his upcoming meeting with Robert Kraft, the Jets have now come for Belichick. He watched the Jets out-play his team and out-coach him in a 17-3 upset, then celebrate as the Patriots did at the dawn of their dynasty.

Because after the tuck rule, Tom Brady’s late-game heroics and Adam Vinatieri’s magic right foot, the lasting image of Belichick’s first playoff win in New England is of players making snow angels. Grown men celebrating like children after beating the Raiders in overtime, exuding the joy a region would come to know for two decades thanks to them and their successors. There was a magic that night, the Snow Bowl, the end for old Foxboro Stadium.

After the Jets, nothing marks time in Patriots history quite like bad weather.

The Snow Bowl, the Snowplow Game the frigid playoff triumphs over Peyton Manning’s Colts in the early 2000s and rain falling on Brady’s return as a Buccaneer in 2021. While Belichick conspired with the rain that night to stifle Brady’s legendary fire for three quarters, Brady reignited that spark to pull away with a close win.

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On Sunday, snow fell on Belichick’s icy glare like it belonged. Belichick wore it on his head, his shoulders and arms during the game, unflinchingly focused on the field, a place he’s poured himself into for half a century. He paced the sideline as he always had. Business as usual.

Slowly, the storm surrounding Belichick began to mirror how speculation over his future twisted this season. Snow lightly touched the corners of the field at kickoff, but was easily brushed away to make way for a clean game and playing surface. Then by the halfway point, the storm had blanketed everything.

It defined this snoozefest and strangled play, rendering football secondary to the storylines. The game turned from football to waiting. Once play finished, Belichick’s shortcomings and the reason for all the speculation hung on the scoreboard: Jets 17, Patriots 3.

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The Patriots finished 4-13. Belichick is now 29-38 over the past four seasons, undone by his failures as a coach and GM.

The Patriots’ starting skill-position players often resembled a preseason lineup: Kevin Harris or Ezekiel Elliott at running back, Demario Douglas and Jalen Reagor at receiver, Mike Gesicki and Pharaoh Brown at tight end. Only Elliott finished with more than 50 total yards.

After the game, Belichick waited more than an hour to address reporters. Patriots public relations capped questions at five or six, half of the usual allotment. Of course Belichick didn’t want to talk.

He’d more than likely just met his end. And holding the door for him on his way out?

Those damned and deplorable, J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets.