St. Louis ? Of all the mundane Mike Martz chatter on the NFL pregame shows Sunday, only one item jumped out.

It was this comment by ESPN’s Chris Mortensen:

“Martz told me that in contract discussions in June, team president John Shaw explained that the Rams only needed to be a .500 team, occasionally go to the playoffs and suggested that going to the Super Bowl would cost the team money because of expenses incurred by that event.”

Mortensen’s report created a buzz among Rams fans. The customers who pay the Rams good money for tickets obviously want to know if the team president really told the coach that mediocrity is acceptable, even desirable.

If those alleged comments from Shaw to Martz were true, this would raise serious questions about Shaw’s integrity and strike a blow to the credibility of the Rams’ ownership.

“The conversation never occurred,” Shaw said in an interview Monday. “The comments are preposterous. We always strive to get to the playoffs and the Super Bowl. Just look at our record in recent seasons.”

Starting with the 1999 season, the Rams have played in two Super Bowls and been to the playoffs five times in six years, going into 2005. If Shaw and his aides were trying to sabotage the win-loss record, they’ve done a poor job of it. True, the Rams had losing records in their first four seasons in St. Louis, but they’re 68-36 since the end of the 1998 season.

“Our No. 1 goal every year is to win championships,” Shaw said. “If we weren’t trying to do that, I’m not sure why any of us would be here. Secondly, about the Super Bowl costing the team extra expenses, that’s simply inaccurate. The league pays for all Super Bowl expenses. A team makes more money after going to the Super Bowl. You raise prices; you sell more sponsorships-all those things that drive revenue. So, it’s such an absurd statement.”

But don’t players demand more money when a team wins?

“Players want more money if you win a Super Bowl, and they want more money if you lose,” Shaw said. “That’s the nature of our business. But as you know, we have a hard salary-cap system, so our costs are all contained within the cap. It’s not like even if they want more money (by winning) you could give them more money.”

So what was the basis of Martz’s comments to Mortensen? Shaw speculates that Martz may have misinterpreted a conversation they had last summer.

“When I spoke to Mike last offseason about a possible contract extension, I did say to him that it’s kind of difficult or unreasonable to expect a team to go to the playoffs every year,” Shaw said. “And so I didn’t want to evaluate his extension just simply on the basis of making the playoffs every year.

“But it would never be an expectation of the organization just to be .500. We wouldn’t consider that to be a success. We want to win every year. It’s hard to do. And I think fans recognize it’s hard to do. But we would never say to anyone, ‘Just be .500; we’d be happy with it.’ Going .500 would not be a measuring stick we’d be happy with.”

The irony is, Martz’s record over the last 25 games (including playoffs) is 11-14. And yet, indications are strong that Shaw will make a coaching change after the season. That alone should confirm what management’s standards are. If the Rams’ bosses were pleased with mediocrity, then 11-14 would be fine. If .500 is the goal, Martz would have been rewarded after last year’s 8-8 finish. But he wasn’t.