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When we did our first FanPulse surveys of 2019 last week, one of the questions that was asked was which team you considered the favorite to win the NFC North in 2019. Well, the results are in, and they’re not terribly surprising.
With all precincts reporting, fans of the four NFC North teams have overwhelmingly declared the Chicago Bears to favorites to win the division this coming season. The Bears garnered more support than the other three teams combined, as they took home 66% of the votes that were cast.
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As you can see, the Minnesota Vikings were the best of the rest of the pack, as 16% of the vote was good enough to take home the silver in this competition. In third place, we had the Green Bay Packers at 10%, and the Detroit Lions are in fourth with just 7% of the vote.
Naturally, these results aren’t surprising. The Bears swept the Vikings and the Lions last year, and probably should have gone 6-0 against the division. Everyone is impressed by their defense, and Matt Nagy appears to be on the Sean McVay train to coaching stardom.
However. . .
You’d have to think that if we had FanPulse at around this time last year and asked a similar question, the Vikings would have garnered a similar percentage of the votes and the Bears would have been down towards the bottom of things. After all, the Vikings had just come off of a 13-3 season, upgraded themselves at quarterback with Kirk Cousins and signed a big-time defender in Sheldon Richardson, and appeared to be poised to make a big run behind Mike Zimmer, who was gaining more respect in the coaching community.
Basically, it’s way too early to put way too much stock in anything like this, because any number of things could happen between now and Week 1. Honestly, we haven’t even hit the NFL Draft yet, and we don’t know what kind of impact the Vikings’ draft class (or any other draft class) might have on this season. However, the early returns show that most people expect the three other NFC North teams to be chasing Chicago. . .just like everyone else was expected to be chasing Minnesota last year.