Long term vs. short term

It happens all the time. Cinderella teams never repeat their magical seasons the next year. Payton didn't win all those games last year by chance, and this team didn't rally from 0-4 to win 4 in a row by accident either. We may finish at or below .500 this year, but it doesn't mean that Payton became a donkey overnight. He and Loomis will have a chance to evaluate everything this offseason and do what they think is necessary, and year 3 of Payton will tell us who he really is. I expect that we'll be back in the playoffs because he's a smart guy, he surrounds himself with good people, and his players are all hard-working and high character. He's just got to evaluate some of his game-management skills and learn from his mistakes, something I think he's willing to do. Add that to another year of free agency and the (hopeful) development of Robert Meachem and I think we'll be pretty close to speculating about playoff opponents this time next year.