Yes, I give credit to Sparano for establishing the expectation. The problem is that I could look at those old teams of ours that sucked this decade and see absolutely no reason why they should have been able to win. Even with their ridiculous roster shuffling, we've been fortunate enough to add a lot more talent than we had to part with. From 2002-2003 on, we were pretty much subtracting talent every year as the guys who this team had been based on for years got old or too expensive.
Also, I think that despite Sparano's raising of our expectations (which he deserves credit for), he took what he established in 2008 and actually stepped backwards. We haven't gone anywhere with his guy at QB, he dismantled a good offensive line that he created and the one that replaced it has been crap, and the offense that once was the talk of the NFL for its innovation has become the most predictable in the league. In other words, from the end of 2008 till now he has actually undone all the good things he did in the first place. That's not progress, that's stagnation.
