Our expectations are rooted in our assumptions. Because the public assumes the Washington Commanders are not in the same class as Philadelphia, Kansas City and Buffalo, they expect that Washington has little chance to win the Super Bowl.

That disdain is reflected in the odds. On the BetMGM app on Friday morning, you could win $180, $200 and $260 respectively if you bet $100 on the Eagles, Chiefs or Bills. But if you bet $100 on the Commanders, you would win $850.

Don’t shudder: I am not jinxing the Commanders by picking them to win the Super Bowl. I’m not surprised that the oddsmakers give the Commanders the highest odds of the four. I would do the same. But I sure wouldn’t have them at +850.

(Also, I’m not a sports gambler and discourage it. In the end, almost everybody loses money, and you can spoil your own fun when your team wins but your money loses — against the spread.)

My point: The gambling public’s opinion, reflected in these odds, should not dampen the enthusiasm of Washington fans for a rare, exciting time — reaching the final four in a major pro sport. Pick some other time to be sensible. This week, I spoke to a D.C. sports-loving friend who will turn 80 soon. “I feel like I’m 7 years old again,” he said. That’s the stuff.

Being an underdog doesn’t define your fate — not once you get this far. The 1998 Capitals had the eighth-best regular season record in the NHL but went to the Stanley Cup finals. The 2018 Caps had the sixth-best record but won the Cup. The 2019 Nationals were a wild card with the eighth-best regular season record. They were surrounded — outside Washington, at least — by the same “why bother” odds and attitude. But we know what happened.

Aside from the value of optimism and enthusiasm for their own sake, there’s rational reason for cheerfulness. The way these four teams have played in recent weeks and factoring in their relative health and the varying amounts of postseason pressure on their shoulders, I don’t think there’s much difference at all between any of them.

Washington has had as many gutty or lucky wins as a team will ever see, with Hail Marys, doinks and last-10-second celebrations because of brilliant rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels.

The Cardiac Commanders are no juggernaut. News flash: Neither are the other guys. They may all be better but not by much. Washington doesn’t just have “a puncher’s chance.” It has a realistic chance. Ask the Lions, the NFL’s “best team” until Washington iced them and won by two touchdowns.

The last time I saw something similar involving a D.C. team was the wild-card Nats, a 93-win team in a year when MLB had four teams that won at least 100 games. However, the Nats’ red hot play after a 19-31 start and their band-of-brothers team identity — molded during the season — obscured how good they had become.

Their title required an amazing sequence of come-from-behind triumphs, road wins and upsets of Hall of Fame-bound pitchers. You would have been a fool to bet on them to win the World Series before the playoffs. But you also would have been missing the point, and missing a lot of the fun, if you didn’t realize that They Were Good Enough to Win — if they could make their own breaks and ride their underdog emotion.

That’s where the Commanders probably are now. Nothing less than their best will do. And that might not quite be enough. But those who have enjoyed the team all season shouldn’t let things like “+850,” and countless expert comments that reflect the same dismissive view, deny them the same excitement that fans in Philadelphia, Kansas City and Buffalo are feeling. Those towns should be losing sleep and getting chills. But so should D.C.

The Chiefs may soon become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls. I’ve marveled at Patrick Mahomes’s feel for victory. Mastering the game situation isn’t just knowing the score, the time on the clock and the down-and-distance. It’s a kind of fourth-dimension sense of a sport that Wayne Gretzky, Tom Brady and Larry Bird had. How do we get from “here,” with all its variables, to “we win at 0:00.”

Even if you are Brady or Mahomes, you can’t always pull it off. Eleven of the Chiefs’ wins this season were by one score. Last Sunday, they led Houston 13-12 entering the fourth quarter. In the previous two postseasons, they pulled out four wins by three-point margins. Such clutch wins are Kansas City’s identity, not a fluke. But it’s a dicey way to win ad infinitum.

The current Bills are a fascinating, lopsided curiosity. They are 10-0 at home with a vast 159-point margin of victory. On the road, they are 5-4 with on a 24-point margin. They won’t play at home again. In my book, the Ravens had them beaten last weekend but beat themselves.

Carrying extra multigenerational baggage in the playoffs does not help in any sport. Such pressure has been real, though unmeasurable, for the Red Sox, the Cubs and the Capitals, as well as the Lions, who have never been to a Super Bowl, and the Bills, who have never won one.

That black cloud of collective memory didn’t help the Lions as their crowd was stunned into silence Saturday night. If the Bills can win in Kansas City and then capture the Super Bowl, they deserve extra gumption points because their saddles will carry extra weight.

The opposite of baggage is buoyancy. That’s what teams such as the Commanders — and their fans — now have. One of the biggest pleasures of being a fan is the time spent in perfectly reasonable anticipation of something that, on average, only happens once every generation in a 32-team league.

Why would you wait until after your team wins the trophy, or gets to play for it, to find yourself on a weekday suddenly grinning, humming, maybe whistling because, subconsciously, you know how close your team is to the goal?

Just two weeks ago, you could still get 30-1 odds on Washington winning the Super Bowl. Even after they beat Tampa Bay and Detroit, I still think that’s how the Commanders are seen by many. I see it a bit differently: Washington and Philadelphia split two games this season, with the Eagles having a better total point margin by just five points.

The competition was close even though the Eagles rushed for 228 and 211 yards, with Saquon Barkley getting 146 and 150 of them. The Eagles may well do the same Sunday. Washington scored 36 points against a top-ranked Eagles defense in the second meeting, the most of any team this season. They won, 36-33, because Daniels threw five touchdown passes and overcame five Washington turnovers.

We can analyze this to death. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts left after a first-quarter concussion in the second game. That puts an asterisk on the Washington win. On the other hand, Hurts finished last Sunday’s game in a knee brace after a twisting tackle and only returned to practice fully Thursday.

The Eagles are six-point favorites for good reason. They “probably” will win — that’s what odds mean. But the Lions were favored by more. Things happen.

That’s why you watch. But it’s also why, for the rest of this week and, who knows, maybe thereafter, Commanders fans have every right to be just as excited as fans in those three cities, which the odds say have — oh sooooo much — superior teams.