Football fans and pundits frequently reach back to say or post, “Welcome to the NFL,” this time of year.

It’s a four-word phrase – if not a four-letter word – that illustrates how quickly things can change, namely when a team’s Week 1 highs get pancaked by Week 2 lows.

But it also works both ways.

The Los Angeles Rams proved that on “Monday Night Football,” thumping the visiting New York Giants 28-6 in a remarkable rebound from a season-opening dud against the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 10.

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “And sometimes you have a dumbass coach that makes travel plans that put you in a bad spot.”

On Monday, the Rams relied on another conditional they hope remains constant. Sometimes, Aaron Donald plays nearly 60 percent of your defensive snaps after coming out of retirement.

Throughout the Los Angeles locker room, players cited the return of No. 99 to the defensive line as a leading reason they prevailed.

Quarterback Matthew Stafford admitted Donald’s jubilation while running out of the tunnel made Stafford “so juiced” that “I couldn’t control myself.”

He was speaking figuratively, of course, because Stafford completed 71 percent of his passes for 327 yards and four touchdowns, including two scores to Davante Adams.

The performance of Stafford’s counterpart, Jameis Winston, impacted the game significantly, too. Thrust into action after Giants franchise QB Jaxson Dart exited with a left-knee injury after just seven snaps – “in the neighborhood” of an MCL sprain, coach John Harbaugh said – Winston sputtered.

And that may be putting it mildly.

Winston completed just 11-of-27 passes for 111 yards and interception while leading the Giants only to a pair of Dominic Zvada field goals.

“We have to execute better,” Winston said. “We are focusing on being in better down-and-distance. We were in third-and-long a lot, so we have to execute better; I have to execute better on first and second down.”

Easier said than done with Donald looming on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

Still ramping up after ending a retirement of two-plus years about 10 days earlier, Donald didn’t travel to Australia.

With eventual partner in crime Myles Garrett watching from a suite after being placed on injured reserve with a knee injury, Donald notched three tackles, one for loss. While he didn’t generate a quarterback pressure, Donald helped the Rams nearly double their pass rush win rate from the previous week simply by lining up, as his coach saw it.

“He elicits attention,” McVay said. “He brings everybody up around him. And I didn’t think it was by coincidence that the energy that we played with [tonight]. I thought really the defensive coaches did a great job with their game plan, but ultimately just elevating situations he’s in and people that he’s around and that’s what the greats do and that’s what he does.”

With Garrett likely to miss at least the next three games while recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery, Donald must continue to adapt around LA’s other talented pass rushers.

Working through more double-teams than he would with Garrett around doesn’t quite scream “Welcome to the NFL” for a veteran of Donald’s accomplishments.

If Donald still is up to it, though, imagine how the Rams might look in another month.

Control Resonant has one default difficulty setting, but you can adjust it to your preference through Assist Mode. You can make the gameplay harder or easier by tweaking several options. That said, there’s no penalty for turning on Assist Mode, and you can still unlock all achievements for 100% completion.

Here are all the details regarding Control Resonant’s difficulty settings and how you can customize them using Assist Mode.

How to use Assist Mode and adjust difficulty in Control Resonant

To adjust your difficulty in Control Resonant, start a playthrough or load an existing one. Afterward, go to Options → Gameplay → Assist Mode. Afterward, enable the mode to customize the difficulty settings.

This option is only available during a playthrough, as the difficulty settings affect only the current save slot. This lets you customize different playthroughs to suit your preferences using Assist Mode.

Here are the Assist Mode preset options:

• Field Agent: Lowest combat difficulty, perfect if you only want to enjoy the story.
• Strategist: Approach fights methodically. You need to dodge enemy attacks perfectly and strike at appropriate times, all while managing your health bar.
• Ranger: Both incoming and outgoing damage are low, so you’ll spend more time dealing with enemy waves.

Here are all of the Assist Mode options that you can customize, along with their details:

• Power Recovery Speed: Adjust how fast or slow your Power recovers.
• Incoming Damage: Adjust how much damage you take.
• Outgoing Damage: Adjust how much damage you deal.
• Outgoing Falter: Adjust how much Falter you deal (the bar below the enemy health bar).
• Perfect Dodge Window: Increase it to have more time to execute a perfect dodge.
• Enemy Projectile Speed: Lower it to make enemy projectiles slower.
• Enhanced Melee Magnetizing: Enable it to lock on to enemy targets from a bigger distance.
• Immortality: You will take damage but will not die.
• One-Hit Kills: Kill enemies in a single hit.
• One-Hit Falters: Deal max Falter to enemies in a single hit. You can immediately follow up with an Execution.
• Enemy Aggression: Adjust how many enemies attack you simultaneously.

Check out: Strike, Glaive, or Cleave: Which primary weapon should you choose?

Best difficulty settings in Control Resonant

If you want to have a balanced difficulty to enjoy fast-paced combat and explore the locations to complete quests efficiently, you can opt for these settings:

• Power Recovery Speed: 500
• Incoming Damage: 50
• Outgoing Damage: 250
• Outgoing Falter: 300
• Perfect Dodge Window: 300
• Enemy Projectile Speed: 60
• Enhanced Melee Magnetizing: Yes
• Immortality: No
• One-Hit Kills: No
• One-Hit Falters: No
• Enemy Aggression: Medium

Since you need to do a lot of exploration and solve complicated puzzles in Control Resonant, I opted for these settings so I can enjoy both the combat and finishing quests. The combat feels like a hack-and-slash and lets you finish objectives faster.

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