FanPulse: Chargers fan confidence holds steady as the team continues to lose in embarrassing fashion

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.
• At a certain point, you just become numb to the losing and confidence has now bounced back up to 9 percent.

As usual on Sunday, the Chargers managed to fluctuate between looking like a team that could be picking #1 overall in the NFL Draft and like one that could make the playoffs, sometimes even during the same drive. Ultimately, the Chargers decided to rely on Melvin Gordon in crunch time and Melvin Gordon did Melvin Gordon things which inevitably resulted in another loss for the good guys.

All fan bases were asked two questions this week. One was about the best football movie in history and the other was whether or not they feel NFL games are being officiated fairly.

Remember The Titans ran away with this one taking a very clear plurality. This comes as little surprise given just how rewatchable that movie is combined with the fact that it is still constantly replayed on cable.

Even less surprising is the fact that NFL fans have very little confidence in the fairness of officiating in the National Football League. I suspect we could have gotten an even lower number if we’d asked if you thought they were officiated competently.