Okay, welcome to the first in what I hope to make a regular series. Every home game, I’ll be conducting a very unscientific poll that mostly consists of me pestering people who wander by our tailgating party (this week: Orange lot in the back near A50). I’m hoping to get a better feel for the average fan’s opinions, and to help gauge the mood of our fan base before and during the game.
Last Sunday, I kicked it off with the rather pedestrian question “How will the Redskins do this year?” I hope to come back to this question once or twice more throughout the year so we can track the levels of optimism (and perhaps rampant homerism) present in our fan base. Remember that this question was asked *BEFORE* the miraculous comeback win over the saints.
Everyone questioned (23 people total) said that the Redskins would have a record between 10-6 and 6-10. A full 75 percent of the picks were either 9-7, 8-8, or 7-9 and the data formed a nice bellshaped curve centered around the 8-8 mark. According to the fans on Sunday morning, we are destined to have an 8-8 season.
Given the optimism that most teams have in the early parts of the year (every team still has dreams of winning the superbowl at this stage) and the tendency to overestimate your team’s abilities, I find the results to show that our fans had little faith in our team’s abilities. When our best hope seems to hover around the 8-8 mark, that is a sign that we suspect a long season is ahead of us. Given last week’s Giants-Redskins game along with the obvious success of all the other teams in our division, this is hardly surprising. Fans are noticeably wary and guarded and they’re right to be so.
What will be interesting is to revisit this in a couple of weeks. If we can pull another convincing win against Arizona, will we reassess our position or will we remain skeptical until we can defeat one of the big bad NFC East teams? Stay tuned to find out more.
You can be a part of Game Day Chatter! Let me know what questions you would like to have me ask the fans at the game. Your opinions matter!
Tags: Fans Speak up, Redskins, Unscientific Poll
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