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Saguaro
I agree that my post IMPLIES that my expectations have been lowered, but I didn't state that. It's true, though.

I think it's mostly due to the defense.

I thought that even Goff 2.0 would be good enough to win a Superbowl with the Rams this year, if the defense was playing lights out.

I don't see them playing lights out, which puts a lot more pressure on the offense.

That to me increases the odds that the Rams are going to drop a playoff matchup somewhere along the line when the offense has a bad day, and the defense can't make up for it.

The team that beats them won't necessarily be a better team, just better that day, or get better bounces of the ball. Or is allowed to blatantly hold Aaron Donald on big pass plays.

Like I said, the way this affects me is that I'm not really stressing out over certain developments, or games, because I'm not constantly white-knuckled over whether it's going to kill our championship.

It doesn't mean I'm down in the dumps, or not confident. Before each individual game, I EXPECT to win THAT game.

I just don't expect to win a constant string of them with no break, particularly in the playoffs.

I understand your position.

For me, my expectations haven't been lowered because, while I expected to win, I didn't expect for there to be no bumps in the road. It was never gonna be easy.

For that reason, when I see a bump, I'm pretty calm about it. It's very similar to some of the games we've played this year. I expect to win going in, but when we've faced adversity and things don't look good, I've had a calm confidence that we'd pull it out somehow.

So far that's held true. 6-0. I can't lower expectations now in the face of that record.

I think the defense is a slight disappointment but I still expect it to get much better. Improvement as the season progresses is typical of Wade's defenses. I am honestly at a loss for this feeling of alarm from my fellow fans.

But even if the defense stayed about the same, I'm not wavering because I don't see a team out there that doesn't have a major weakness. We're concerned about our D but interestingly enough ALL of the other currently elite teams have worse defenses than us.

During the Aaron Donald holdout saga, I made a prediction: if we managed to get Donald to play, we would win the Super Bowl. That's my story, I'm sticking to it!