Survey results!!
National expectations
With the start of the 2024 NFL season less than a week away, SB Nation conducted a national email survey of fans registered to participate in the Reacts surveys. The same question was asked about each of the 32 teams: ‘Are you confident that this team is headed in the right direction?’
Nationally, only 43% of respondents expressed confidence in the Commanders’ direction.
Interestingly, this put the Commanders just inside the top half of the league in terms of confidence expressed in this survey, at 15th highest, just ahead of Jacksonville (40%) and behind the Chargers (48%).
The highest confidence number recorded was 90% (Detroit Lions), with the three lowest being the Cowboys (15%), Patriots (12%), and the NY Giants (11%).
The other team in the NFC East, the Philadelphia Eagles, ranked 11th at 58%.
SB Nation usually asks the confidence question repeatedly during the season and tracks the movement up or down of confidence expressed in each team on a weekly basis. If that happens again this year, we will report the 2024 results to you as they come in.
Hogs Haven Readers
In addition to the email survey asking about confidence, we posted a pair of survey questions here on Hogs Haven this week. In the first question, we asked readers to predict the Commanders record at the end of September.
Overall, our readers were fairly optimistic.
While just over half the respondents predicted a .500 record of 2-2, more than a third of all respondents predicted a winning record of 3-1 or 4-0 as compared to just 14% that predicted a losing record in the first quarter of the season.
In reading through the comments, I got the impression that the game that fans in general are most confident of winning is the Week 2 home opener against the Giants. Comments on the other three games were mixed and often vague, with fans seeming to tap into a general ‘vibe’ about the team to reach their predictions rather than prognosticating game-by-game outcomes.
Reading between the lines, it seems as if Hogs Haven readers in general are still a bit unsure about what to expect from the offense and defense. There’s hope that the team will be better than last year, and an expectation that better coaching will lead to better play, but trepidation about the talent level of the roster, particularly at certain positions (usually CB, OL, WR, TE). In addition to better coaching, optimism seems to be driven by positive expectations for rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels.
Overall, the ‘glass half full’ group seems to out-number the ‘glass half empty’ group by more than 2:1, with both of those groups combined being outnumbered by the “looks like a .500 result” cohort.
Week 1 at Tampa Bay
Washington and Tampa Bay have played each other 25 times since the Bucs joined the NFL in the 1970s.
- Washington leads the series 13-12.
- Washington has won 2 out of the last 3 games, dating back to 2018, and 4 of the last 6 games, dating back to 2012.
- Playing at home, Washington is 2-1 since 2015.
- Washington won its last two road games vs the Buccaneers in 2012 and 2018, and has a 3-2 record playing in Tampa Bay since 2006.
Hogs Haven readers have diverse opinions about the outcome of next Sunday’s season opener, but the optimists definitely rule on this question. 57% of respondents predict that the Commanders will win the first regular season game of the Dan Quinn era — the only question is: by how much?
The most popular prediction (37%) is that the Commanders will win by more than 3 points; the next most popular prediction is for a close win for TB with a margin of less than 3 points.
Among the 43% of fans that predict a loss, only 12% expect Tampa Bay to cover the betting spread with margin of victory greater than 3 points.
The game will be played in the late-afternoon window, with kickoff scheduled at 4:25pm on Sunday, September 8th.
The NFL season kickoff is scheduled for Thursday night, when the Ravens visit the Chiefs.
There will be a special Friday night game, when the Eagles will play host to the Packers in the first-ever game in Brazil. Nomally, teams are prohibited from wearing green at Corinthians Arena in São Paulo, home to the Brazilian soccer team Corinthians, because it’s the color for Palmeiras, a rival soccer club. That would have been awkward for the Eagles and Packers — two teams that use green as the primary color in their uniforms.
Not to worry, however. The ban on green will not apply to next week’s NFL game. Even so, the Eagles will be sporting a new look, with a new black & white design. Philly players will be sporting white jerseys with black pants and helmets.
Meanwhile, the Commanders will have a less spectacular break with tradition by wearing their burgundy jerseys — typically worn for home games — instead of the road whites when they travel next Sunday. One wonders if this might be the result of a bit of gamesmanship on behalf of the Bucs, putting the visitors in dark colored jerseys in the hot Florida sunshine. At least the late afternoon start time will offer the potential for some slight relief from the Tampa heat.