Hogs Haven
One thing I’ve learned from writing the Reacts series of articles over several years is that fan confidence is a wobbly thing that is heavily influenced by the most recent events.
In the NFC East this week, the fan base with the highest level of confidence if that of the last-place New York Giants — the only division team to have won a game in Week 6. That win was a doozy of an upset, with the Giants stepping on the throats of the 1st place Philadelphia Eagles, crushing them by a score of 34-17 on Thursday Night Football. Much of the confidence expressed by Giants fans comes from that victory, but they have been a pretty buoyant fan base all season because of their belief in rookie QB Jaxson Dart (and despite the loss for the season of their young star receiver Malik Nabers).
Eagles fans, who opened the season with a 96% confidence score, have been on a downward trend ever since. The Philly offense has appeared broken and dysfunctional through most of the 6 games the team has played, even when the Eagles opened up with 4 straight wins. We’ve seen this before from Philly; sometimes the team pulls out of the funk to win a super bowl and sometimes the season crashes and burns around their ears. The loss to the Giants this week felt a lot like the ‘crashing and burning’ variety, but let’s see what happens on Sunday when Philadelphia takes on the Vikings in Minnesota before we declare the patient — who is 4-2 and in the division lead — dead.
The Cowboys fans opened the season with low numbers in the wake of the Micah Parsons trade and have never really recovered despite having the league’s most prolific offense in terms of yards and the 3rd most prolific in terms of points. In 7 weeks, Dallas fan confidence has peeked above 50% only once, in Week 2 of the season. It’s current level (11%) is driven by having a sub-.500 record and the leagues worst defense (measured by yards surrendered) or 2nd worst (measured by points surrendered). Dallas fans were horrified to see their team lose to the Carolina Panthers last weekend.
Commanders fans were equally dismayed by the loss, on Monday night, to the Bears on a walk-off field goal by the Chicago kicker. Washington had the lead, the ball, and 3:10 on the game clock facing a 3rd down and needing 1 yard to start to ice the victory when disaster struck in the form of a lost fumble on a mishandled snap due to a wet, slick football. While there’s been a lot of ‘sky is falling’ commentary from Commanders fans since the loss, the fact is, that slick-ball fumble is the key mistake that prevented Washington from exiting that game with a win that would have secured first-place in the NFC East.
Even with the loss, there’s a lot of context around the current 3-3 record:...
