FanPulse: Chargers fans’ confidence appears to have bottomed out

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 4:

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.

Either most people went into the Houston game already expecting a loss, or there just wasn’t really any room left for fan confidence to go after losing in Detroit to a Lions team that currently sits in sole possession of 1st place in the very competitive NFC North. I assume it’s the former because I suspect confidence could fall to zero with a loss to the tanking Dolphins this week.

All fan bases were asked which winless team would make the playoffs, and these were the results.

Since “none of the above” was not a possible response, the execrable Pittsburgh Steelers ran away with this one since they were easily the least laughable response even with Mason Rudolph playing quarterback.