Daily Norseman FanPulse: The roller coaster continues for Vikings fans

If you’ve been a fan of the Minnesota Vikings for any length of time, you know that fans of this team tend to be a relatively emotional and passionate bunch. And with good reason. . .when a team screws with your emotions as frequently as this team does, it isn’t out of line to act accordingly. In this week’s Daily Norseman FanPulse poll, we see that happening once again.

Following the loss to the Chicago Bears in Week 11, fan confidence in the Vikings dipped to the lowest levels we’ve seen all year. . .yes, even lower than after the Vikings’ loss to the Buffalo Bills in Week 3. Only 22% of Vikings fans that took our survey labeled themselves as being “confident” in the direction of the team following that Sunday night loss at Soldier Field. The previous low point prior to that was 33%, which is where confidence was at following the back-to-back losses to the Bills and the Los Angeles Rams.

However, following this past Sunday’s win over Green Bay, confidence is back above the 50% mark, albeit just barely at 51%. As you can see from the graph above, it’s just the latest in a series of rises and dips that we’ve seen throughout the 2018 NFL season.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Vikings fans, on average, are expecting the rise to continue next week. The average prediction from Vikings’ fans is for a 1-point loss against the mighty New England Patriots in Foxborough this Sunday afternoon.

Strangely, for a team that’s currently sitting at 8-3 and would be looking at the #2 seed in the AFC if the season ended today, Patriots fans don’t seem to be as confident in their team as you’d think they would be.

The percentage of Patriots fans that classed themselves as “confident” in their team’s direction is only at 68%, according to our FanPulse numbers. Granted, there are only seven teams across the SB Nation network whose fans have expressed a greater level of confidence in their team, but that does seem a little low for a franchise that’s had the level of success that the Patriots have had over the past. . .I don’t know. . .two decades or so.

Patriots fans do expect a win this Sunday, however, as their average pick is for the Patriots to score a 5-point victory over the purple.

That’s this week’s FanPulse results, ladies and gentlemen. Hopefully we can defy our expectations for this week and see what would likely be a significant jump after this Sunday’s game.