FanPulse: Chargers fan confidence bounces back slightly after ugly win

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.
• Stealing a win on the road against a bad Bears team has confidence back up to 14 percent.

The Bears were set to rip out the hearts of Chargers fans the way many teams before them have, but Matt Nagy decided to complicate matters for his team by kneeling to set up a long field goal instead of picking up more yards to create an easier one. His kicker, of course, missed and the Chargers finally got back in the Win column. The win was not enough to save Ken Whisenhunt’s job, however, and he is now gone.

All fan bases were asked whether the Dolphins would win or the Patriots would lose first, and it was decided by a surprisingly big margin...

It’s certainly easier to go win-less than undefeated, so it’s not shocking that people felt it was more likely the Pats would lose before the Dolphins won, but it is worth noting that Miami has come closer to winning a game than New England has to losing one.