Fanpulse 2019: the Return

SB Nation launched FanPulse last season in an attempt to use an email survey to gauge the mood of the 32 fanbases across the SB Nation NFL landscape. Hogs Haven reported on those results on a regular basis.

Today kicks off our 2019 coverage, and if you are a Redskins fan, I suppose the only optimistic way to look at the initial results is to say that (i) they are better than the initial results from the same poll in 2018; and (ii) there’s a lot of upside potential in the fans’ confidence.

The first question asked fans if they were confident in their team at this point. Being a highly scientific poll, the three possible responses were: “Yes”, “meh” and “no”.

The results reported only the percentage of ‘Yes’ responses, and I’m excited to report that the Redskins, via their proxy of Hogs Haven voters, turned out to be No. 1 in the entire league!! More Redskins fans voted either “meh” or “no” than any other team fanbase!

Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images

In other words, we led the NFL in pessimism, ambivalence and apathy.

Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

The most optimistic fanbases in the poll included the Rams, Bears, Browns, Saints, Colts, Eagles, and Niners, all of whom reported a 95% or higher “Yes” vote.

Photo by David Maxwell/Getty Images

Chances are, most of those fan bases will be faced with coming disappointment in 2019 - especially for the ones that suffer an opening week loss, which tends to shatter the confidence of fans, based on what I saw last season.

Obviously, the Eagles had the highest level of confidence in the NFC East. The rest of the division was noticeably less enthusiastic about the state of the teams. Blogging the Boys tallied a 57% ‘Yes’ vote; Big Blue View was at 49%, and our own Hogs Haven fan base tallied just 19%.

Yep. Nineteen percent.

By way of reference, the second-lowest ‘Yes’ vote was from the Texans’ fans, who racked up a 26% positive share.

Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

I’m not sure why Houston fans are so glum, having just won the AFC South in 2018, but perhaps they’re eyeing the Colts and thinking that there’s a changing of the guard afoot.

On a positive note, the Hogs Haven 19% vote was significantly higher than the 9% result recorded this time last year. This season, as I’ve mentioned, the Redskins fans are the least confident of 32; in 2018, by contrast, we tallied only the second-lowest confidence rating prior to the draft. Last season, the least confident fan base in the NFL in early April was the Panthers fans, who recorded an incredibly low 5% optimism rate.

So, as fans, we Hogs Haven readers collectively are the most pessimistic this season, having been the second-most pessimistic a year ago, but our rate of optimism is actually 10% higher than it was this time last year.

Statistics are funny.

The second survey question about the Redskins asked: Did your team get better or worse in free agency?

Personally, I answered ‘worse’.

I looked at the loss of Jamison Crowder, Preston Smith, Ty Nsekhe, Zach Brown, HaHa Clinton-Dix, Shaun Lavaou, Pernell McPhee, Maurice Harris, and 5 other offensive linemen offset by the addition of Case Keenum, Landon Collins, Ereck Flowers and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, and felt like, on balance, more talent went out the door than came in.

When I added to that my feelings about where the Redskins are, position-by-position, compared to 2018, I couldn’t think of a single position group (aside from, possibly, safety) that had improved from 2018.

For me? Worse.

Definitely worse.

But the Hogs Haven fan base as a whole disagreed with me, tallying a surprising 71% vote for “Better”.

Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images

There are a lot of fans out there seeing something that I’m missing, I guess.

We’re a schizophrenic group here at Hogs Haven. We feel good about improvements made in free agency, but pessimistic about the team and the upcoming season.

It will be interesting to see which way the arrow points after the draft.

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We are considered the voice of the fan here at Hogs Haven and we talk daily about who the Redskins are and how the Redskins are doing. From last week’s game to this week’s game to that awful call from the referees, Washington fans congregate here and consensus is...mostly...formed.

FanPulse surveys will pull together the insights of the most plugged-in Redskins fans among us. If that describes you, then SIGN UP HERE to join other knowledgeable fans (including me and some other Hogs Haven contributors) on SB Nation FanPulse.

If you sign up, you’ll be among a self-selected group of fans from Hogs Haven who answer quick polls each week developed by SB Nation. We want to build the definitive poll of informed Redskins fans, and that includes you.

Your votes will be anonymous--though if you join, you’re welcome to tell anyone you like. The results of each poll will be published by Hogs Haven, and may end up on SBNation.com also along with the results from other team sites.

Ready to sign up as a Hogs Haven FanPulse participant? CLICK HERE.