I honestly think it's less pessimism and more apathy. As others have said, we seem content to build a wild card playoff team, not a championship contender. That was fine pre Payton, but now that doesn't really move the needle.
What have they done to make you think that? I mean, I get it if you think the moves they have made were the wrong moves, but to say they are content to be a wild card team seems to be unsupportable to me.
They have cut back on pushing the can, but that is a necessary move to reset the cap so that when they get a good young QB and they are ready to contend, they can start kicking the can again to keep that championship potential window open. There was always going to be a down time between a HoF QB retiring and finding a new QB that can make you a contender. It's very rare that a team can avoid that. We had a shot to do that with Mahomes but KC jumped ahead of us.