FanPulse: Fan confidence hits a new low after another humiliating defeat

Plenty of you here at Bolts From The Blue have been taking part in the ongoing fan confidence surveys since last year. This is part of SB Nation’s FanPulse tool, which sends weekly questions to the city’s most hardcore fans via email.

If you are interested in joining the Chargers FanPulse, please sign up here.

Trends

• At the end of last season, 76 percent of Chargers fans reported confidence in the team’s direction. After free agency, that number climbed to 81 percent.
• Prior to the draft, only 71 percent of fans were confident in the direction of the team. After the draft, that number jumped all the way to 88 percent.
• By preseason Week 1, that number had fallen again to 78 percent confidence. That number fell off a cliff as we approached the regular season all the way down to 59 percent.
• Following the Chargers’ Week 1 overtime win against the Colts, 58 percent of Chargers fans remain confident in the direction of the team. That difference is small enough to be considered holding steady.
• With a loss to the Lions in Week 2, fan confidence was shattered, and it now sits at 20 percent.
• With another loss, this time to the Texans, fan confidence sits at 17 percent.
• Getting back to .500 has the fan confidence climbing all the way to 41 percent.
• Apparently, losing at home to a team that was talking about embracing the tank days before you played them is not good for confidence, and ours has fallen to a new low of 12 percent.
• Losing to a rookie undrafted free agent quarterback named “Duck” has our confidence tumbling to 7 percent.

2019 has been one of those years that feels all too familiar. Throughout the offseason we kept finding reasons for optimism with a handful of scattered red flags that reminded us things might not be perfect. Then, the season started off with a scare, but it was one we could ignore because of the win. After that, though, things started to deteriorate, and now we find ourselves thinking “it can’t really get worse than this,” only to watch things almost immediately get worse.

All fan bases were asked who the leader in the Coach of the Year race is...

The top 3 of Sean Payton, Bill Belichick, and Kyle Shanahan are in a class of their own this season and the poll results reflect that. What Shanahan is doing in San Francisco with a team that many did not expect to break out so soon easily carried the poll, though.