FanPulse: Confidence is an interesting thing

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Question of the Week

Which young QB would you take for the next 10 years?

1) Wentz 2) Goff 3) Mahomes 4) Deshaun Watson

Redskins fans were overwhelmingly enamored with the Kansas City signal caller, as Pat Mahomes earned 64% of the vote.

The rest:

• Wentz 22%
• Goff 11%
• Watson 3%

Measuring fan confidence in the team

A look at the confidence chart below shows that, in Week 1, before any games had been played, Redskins fans were reasonably confident in their team, registering a 76% confidence rate.

In Week 2, following the big win against the Cardinals, confidence spiked up a bit to 88%, but the increase in confidence was muted — probably because no one was really sure just how good the Arizona team would be this season.

Week 3 followed on the heels of the loss to the Indianapolis Colts. Confidence collapsed to just 36%. You get the sense that the long-suffering Redskins fans were just waiting for bad news, and reacted strongly to it when it arrived.

In Week 4, with a win against the Packers, confidence doubled to 74%.

Week 5 is interesting, because this followed the Redskins bye week in which all three of our rivals lost. Despite the fact that the Redskins didn’t play a game, confidence crept up by 7 points to 81%.

If you follow the Redskins closely, then the results for Weeks 6 & 7 may look a bit puzzling.

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

Week 6 surveys were sent out on Monday, before the team played the Saints. I’m not sure when most fans responded, but I’m guessing that a lot of the surveys were filled out before the game (I know I did), and only a few afterward, because the fall to 69% was pretty mild (especially compared to what happened following the loss to the Colts in Week2).

Reinforcing that idea is the fact that confidence measured in Week 7, after the win over the Panthers, went down, instead of up. I’m pretty confident that this was an accident of timing on the Week of Monday Night Football.

Still, after six weeks and five games, Redskins fans — despite the fact that the team has a winning record and sits all alone atop the NFC East — are feeling only a moderate level of confidence in the direction of the team, with a measured confidence level of just 57%.

But I’d rather be a Redskin fan than a Panthers fan this week.

Carolina Panthers

They began Week 1 with an incredibly high (and incredibly unrealistic) confidence rating of 99%, and — while that number eroded a bit in the first 5 weeks — prior to Sunday’s game against the Redskins, confidence was still hovering at 84%.

I guess the Panthers fans had been drinking the Kool Aid, because the loss to the Redskins shattered their confidence, which has fallen to just 35% after the Panthers were held to just 17 points in a loss to the Redskins in which the Panthers were never ahead, and never tied aside from 0-0 to start the game.

Dallas Cowboys

Our next opponent is the Dallas Cowboys, who — similar to the Redskins — have alternated wins & losses. Their fans have been almost perfectly reactive, with confidence falling in the even weeks after each loss, and rebounding in odd weeks, after each win.

You can see from the chart, however, that the low points have gotten progressively lower (Week 6 measured just 5 percent!!), and the high points have followed a similar pattern.

At the moment, fresh off the heels of a 40-burger that their team dropped on the Jacksonville Jaguars, the confidence level of Cowboys fans is just 31%, a full 20 points lower than the Redskins.

Which team in the NFL has the most confident fans?

Unsurprisingly, that distinction belongs to the Rams fans at the moment.

Whose fans have the lowest level of confidence among the 32 teams?

That distinction belongs to the Broncos, who — at 7% — seem to be the most battered fans in the league, behind fans of the Giants and Raiders, who currently tip the scales at just 9% each.

Rather like Humptey Dumptey, the Broncos fans, who began the year at a 93% confidence level, have had a great fall, but, so far, a lousy autumn.

A quick Hogs Haven confidence poll