GT, a couple of things are inevitable. One, like Julie said, we always travel the most or nearly the most miles in the league. It's simply the NFC West. Were in Northern Cal., so Arizona is a stretch, the Rams are in St. L. rather than LA, and our biggest rivals are far away (GB and Dallas, but only GB this year). Add to that the fact that unless the AFC division we are paired against is the West, almost all of the teams are EDT and/or coastal. This year we get the South, but unfortunately Houston is a home game, while Tennessee is away, and Jax is even further, in London (and this is where the team has a real axe to grind: we already travel further than anyone, so why add to that with London). However, of those South teams, the two better ones are Indy and Houston, and at least we get them at home and the two weaker teams are road games. That gives us a better chance at a sweep. We also play the NFC South, but at least the league has given us Atlanta at home. It's a long flight to Tampa, though, and it is our one 10 am game. Sure, it's a tough, tough schedule, but one thing that makes it so tough is that we have Seattle twice, and you can't avoid them. The key to simply come out and establish ourselves as one of the bullies of the league.

One thing is for sure: there isn't a team in the league that wants to see us on their schedule, and there are very few teams in the league that we legitimately should not be favored against. There isn't a whole lot more to ask for as a fan. We are just still fragile as a fan base. Back in the glory days, we didn't really care whether the travel was bad or not because we assumed we'd win anyway, and we have not emotionally gotten back to that yet.