Daily Norseman FanPulse: In before the fall

Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

The Monday night game may have helped

Generally, when we get to our FanPulse polls after a Minnesota Vikings loss, the little line on our graph tends to go a little something like this:

View post on imgur.com

(Props to everyone out there old enough to remember Toonces: The Driving Cat)

But, since the FanPulse questions come out on Mondays and the Vikings didn’t play this week until Monday night, it appears that the timing has mitigated the usual plunge over the proverbial cliff.

After holding steady at 71% for three weeks, this week the percentage of our readers who had confidence in the direction of the team took a small dip to 67%. Again, not the catastrophic drop that it usually takes after the Vikings lose a game. Will it be more reflected in next week’s results? Man, I hope not.

We had three national questions this week, so we’ll start with the one that could potentially affect the Vikings, that being who will win the flaming dumpster fire that is the NFC East.

While about three-fourths of all SB Nation respondents picked the Cowboys. . .again, this was before their loss on Thursday night. . .the correct answer is that both of these teams are awful and yet one of them will be hosting a playoff game on Wild Card Weekend while a team with anywhere from 11 to 13 wins gets to go on the road to face them.

Speaking of division winners. . .

In the 27th (or so) attempt to toss the final shovel of dirt on the New England Patriots dynasty, the question was asked whether or not the Buffalo Bills would win the AFC East. As you can see, the answer was a resounding “no,” with about 80% of respondents not ready to say the Pats are done yet.

Last, but not least, a question about whether the Baltimore Ravens are the best team in the NFL.

The overwhelming response appears to be correct. Honestly, who do you put ahead of them at this point? Nobody, that’s who.

That’s our FanPulse for this week, ladies and gentlemen. Hopefully when we get together next week we’ll find out if a victory over the Detroit Lions is enough to cancel out the disappointment of the loss on Monday Night Football.

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