FanPulse: Chargers fan confidence plummets again following loss to Raiders

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.
• An emphatic road win over a good opponent has confidence back to week 5 levels at 41 percent.
• An embarrassing loss to their division rivals drops confidence all the way back to 17 percent.

The Chargers were playing on a short week against a beatable opponent after what looked like it had a chance to be a season-defining win. Instead of building off that and getting back to .500, the Bolts lost a division game to one of the teams ahead of them in the standings. What chance they had of making the playoffs without having to be perfect the rest of the way was all but completely eliminated.

All fan bases were asked what the most exciting game left on the schedule was...

And it’s the 2018 AFC Championship Game rematch that has everyone hyped up. In second place was the 49ers and Seahawks in a game that has a chance to decide the NFC West in the last week of the regular season. Those voting for the Bengals and Dolphins are presumably Bengals fans, Dolphins fans, or fans of some other team hoping their franchise gets the #1 overall pick this offseason.