Packers Fanpulse, Week 13: Blowout loss tanks fans’ confidence with five games left

Well, Sunday was bad. There’s no other way to describe the Green Bay Packers’ performance against the San Francisco 49ers, and that’s exactly the word that head coach Matt LaFleur used repeatedly when discussing the game this week.

But despite the 37-8 loss to the NFC’s number one seed, the Packers still sit in the third spot in the NFC, holding on to a lead in the NFC North at an 8-3 record. While a first-round bye remains a possibility, home-field advantage may be out of the question with Green Bay two games back of the 49ers and down a tiebreaker as well.

Thus, the focus must shift more to maintaining the NFC North lead and catching the New Orleans Saints. With four losing teams remaining on the Packers’ schedule, that should be doable if Green Bay can manage to win in Minnesota in a few weeks. And even if they do not do so, winning their other four games would give them the tiebreaker over the Vikings anyway despite a season split, so Minnesota would need just one loss to keep them behind Green Bay.

With all of that said, Packers fans are feeling particularly morose about this week’s loss. In fact, in our FanPulse surveys this week, the confidence in the Packers is at a regular-season low. In fact, this is the first time since LaFleur was hired that the number is below 50 percent, having been slashed in half from 75 percent all the way down to 37%.

Take a look at the trend line here:

With Packers fans pretty despondent over the last week’s game, let’s turn our attention over to Thanksgiving foods once again. This week’s FanPulse survey asked NFL fans which of five Thanksgiving sides you would be most willing to leave off the menu at this year’s gathering. Predictably, green bean casserole topped the list, but it was an exact tie across thousands of votes, with yams/sweet potato casserole coming in with the same result. (Of course, if you have read APC’s Thanksgiving Meal Draft, you know that I was ecstatic to get sweet potato casserole in the second round, and I would not abide with it being absent from the table.)

Here’s the full result of that question from this week: