Chad Pennington is not most people's idea of sexy.

We're not talking about looks in this instance, but instead what a quarterback does with a play after he's gone through his reads and run out of good options.

Tom Brady will slip and slide along the creases of the pocket, just out of danger's reach, to buy another few seconds. Tony Romo might retreat 10 yards, scramble from one sideline to the other, and then take off running downfield. Even at 39, Brett Favre still thinks he can throw a ball hard enough to get through any fast-closing window, no matter that two or even three defenders already have their fingers on the sill.

And Pennington?

With little fanfare and less drama, he usually just chucks it out of bounds. Yet that's as big a reason as any why the Miami Dolphins went from 1-15 last season to 11-5 and AFC East champions in this one, securing a spot in the postseason Sunday by beating the New York Jets 24-17 — their ninth win the last 10 games.

"Chad is a piece of this thing, and I think he likes it like that," Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said Sunday, "but he's a tremendously big part of it. To have someone with his kind of stripes and leadership is just what the doctor ordered."

Since the NFL turned over the calendar on a new century, the thinking in more and more front offices has been that you need a sexy quarterback, someone who can match Brady or Peyton Manning big play for big play, to win a Super Bowl. That's what the Jets gambled they were getting when Favre's annual "will-I-or-won't-I-retire" drama ended with him gone from Green Bay and available on the open market the first week of August. And they day after they signed Favre, the Jets essentially chucked Pennington, despite eight years at the helm in New York, out of bounds.

The good news for Pennington is that Bill Parcells was in place in Miami as the Dolphins' vice president of football operations and already hard at work tearing apart the worst team in football.

Parcells drafted Pennington when he was in charge of the Jets in 2000 and then, as now, his idea of sexy is a player who follows instructions. Parcells is a throwback, and unapologetic about it. He cut linebacker Zach Thomas in one of his first moves, then traded Jason Taylor, arguably his best defender, after Taylor chose to compete in "Dancing With the Stars" rather than take part in the Dolphins offseason conditioning program.

At every one of his previous stops — with the Giants, Patriots, Jets and Cowboys — he set out to a build run-first, defensive-oriented team (emphasis on team) that rarely gave the ball away. And so it's hardly coincidence that the Dolphins' 13 turnovers this season tied the NFL mark for fewest in a season, or that the current Giants team that Miami shared the mark with was coached by Tom Coughlin, a Parcells disciple, and the team those two clubs eclipsed was the 1990 Giants coached by — you guessed it — Parcells.

Nor was it coincidence that seven of the Dolphins' 11 wins came by a touchdown or less. That's what Sparano, another Parcells disciple who followed him from Dallas to Miami, meant about Pennington "being just what the doctor ordered." Without the quarterback's sound decisions and sure-handed play, the Dolphins lose maybe half of those close games.

In that sense, Sunday was "Exhibit A." Pennington finished 22-of-30 for 200 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. Favre was 20-of-40 for 233 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions — the last two proving to be backbreakers. For the season, Pennington threw 15 fewer picks than the quarterback who took his place in New York.

"It's not a revenge factor," Pennington said. "It's really not. ... It was strictly focused on winning a championship, and knowing we controlled our own destiny to be AFC East champions. It just so happened it had to come through New York, and that's how sports are. That's the only way fate would have it."

Nice story line, but rather than rely on fate, the Dolphins decided to stake their chances by playing consistent football. Sparano set up the offense conservatively to take advantage of Pennington's strength, timing passes, and then spiced it up on occasion by employing the "Wildcat" formation — a direct snap from center to a running back, usually Ronnie Brown, who was used sparingly a season ago — to maximize the ground game.

Mostly, though, he counted on Pennington.

"He was a tremendous professional the entire week," Sparano said. "He prepared diligently, Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, he was in there grinding pretty good. He did exactly what he's done for the last 15 weeks. He threw the ball well in here today. He guided this team."

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitkeap.org.