I am also more pessimistic going into this year. While I understand and agree with the need to move on from Mario Williams and McKelvin , and to a lesser degree Rambo I think at this point our talent level has gone down.
In addition to hopes for a strong rookie class, some unexpected gems in the scrap heap free agents they do add and improvement from younger players (including even better play from Tyrod) the only source of optimism I can hope for is that with Mario gone the players buy into his defense and the performance of that unit jumps big time.