FanPulse: Chargers fans’ confidence falls off a cliff after week 2

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.

Let’s take a look at what happened to fan confidence heading into Week 3:

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.

The Lions game was a painful one, and in many ways it was the kind of loss that more cynical Bolts fans have come to expect over the years. It felt like the Chargers were the better team for most of the game, but every big play or important call seemed to go against them. In the end, the defense gave up a late lead, and the offense not trusting the special teams to handle their business played overly risky and ended the game with a turnover.

All fan bases were asked which coach would be fired first, and these were the results.

In what was a relatively close race, the Washington Redskins’ Jay Gruden edged out the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Doug Marrone. Personally, I voted for Gruden because I expect he has the better chance of going on a prolonged run of losing to start the season.