It doesn't seem like bragging when Kurt Warner says the Rams have the best offense in NFL history.

In fact, he slides it deftly into the conversation, the way he flips a pass in the flat to Marshall Faulk. It doesn't seem like much at first, but it builds meaning rapidly.

The numbers can make Warner's case: The Rams have been the NFL's best offense the past three years, and this year's version is 36 yards and five points per game better than anybody else's.

Their style, however, demands more than a numerical comparison. As they scatter across the field like a human shotgun blast, they give the impression of playing 15 against 11. It is under those real-time, on-field circumstances that the Rams look not only better, but maybe the best.

Their supremacy hasn't escaped their attention.

"As much as you don't really like to think about it during the season, at some point we can stand back and say we're doing something that's never been done," Warner says. "What we've accomplished offensively has never been done before. To play at this level and put up these numbers is unprecedented."

Warner will walk to the line Monday night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and see boundless opportunity. With Faulk behind him and any combination of four receivers -- Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Ricky Proehl and Az-Zahir Hakim -- flanking him, Warner can be forgiven for feeling a little high and mighty as he gets set to run a play.

"When we're on our game, you don't have to be far off on defense for us to make you look bad," Warner says. "I can sense when they're behind a little bit, and I can feel them struggling to catch up. Sometimes the defense plays the whole game trying to make up that one step they lost at the beginning."

The Rams believe the defense doesn't matter. That's the true beauty of this brand of confidence. What Warner sees is an offense so well-prepared and well-equipped that nobody but the Rams has any hope of stopping it.

This ethic has helped the Rams develop a reputation for single-mindedness, or what crushed opponents might consider arrogance. As Bruce says, "We go in every week knowing we're going to score a lot of points. It's not about embarrassing anybody. They get paid to stop us and we get paid to score points."

But the unspoken aspect of this attitude is the fear it hides, fear of having all these remarkable athletes in the same place at the same time and not making the most of the situation.

In other words, imagine having the best offense in NFL history and still managing to screw it up.

It goes to show there are two kinds of pressure: Pressure to be good, and pressure to stay good once you're there. The pressure to be good is viewed as heartwarming and valorous; the pressure to stay good is viewed as scheming and vindictive.

"We're trying to achieve a level of performance that we've envisioned," says head coach Mike Martz. "And here's the burden: What I feel is a real responsibility that they're as prepared as I can get them. If not then I've let them down. That's what I worry about more than anything else."

Martz repeatedly tells his players they are experiencing a special place in time, but how special depends on the ending. Two Super Bowl titles in three years, under the current anti-dynasty regulations, would back Warner's claim.

"Who knows how much longer we can keep this up?" Warner asks. "Who knows how much longer we can stay together?

"We just want to make sure we don't ever take it for granted."

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tim.keown@espnmag.com.