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The Green Bay Packers have a new look under their new head coach, and it seems that fans of the team are feeling a renewed sense of optimism for the 2019 NFL season. APC’s FanPulse survey group is back for another year and although last year’s results went in the tank as the team stumbled to a 6-9-1 record, the group is feeling much better at this point than it did eight months ago.
As of this week’s survey, which came following the Packers’ preseason opener against the Houston Texans, 73 percent of Packers FanPulse members surveyed have a confident view of the team’s direction. That number is pretty steady with other results of surveys from this offseason, however; the number is up just three percent compared to the survey taken after the 2019 NFL Draft (70%) and is only five percent higher than the post-free agency numbers (68%).
While the results since free agency additions came in have not moved much, the difference from the end of last season to that period was striking. The coaching change from Mike McCarthy to Matt LaFleur and those free agency additions made these numbers leap all the way up from a depressing 28 percent. Here’s a look at those trends since the end of last year:
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Meanwhile, this week’s national FanPulse survey question asked which NFL team is most likely to be dethroned as a division champion. The reigning NFC North champion Chicago Bears ranked fourth among the eight options, sitting at about 12.6% of respondents. However the leaders were the Ravens (27.4%), Cowboys (26.5%) and Texans (20.5%), all of whom won their divisions by one game or less in 2018. Unsurprisingly, the New England Patriots had the lowest number of votes at just 1.9%.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more FanPulse results!
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