Ravens fans believe Baltimore will repeat as champions of the AFC North in a majority.
Earlier this week, Baltimore Beatdown polled their readers’ confidence in the team, expected record after Week 5 and if they believe the Ravens will beat the Washington Commanders on Sunday. The results from the poll are sponsored by FanDuel Sportsbook.
Before getting to Sunday’s game poll results, let’s take note of the confidence rating.
Heading into Week 5, Ravens fan’s confidence was at an all-time high of 93%. Back-to-back big-time wins against the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills had this fanbase roaring. And yet, after the Ravens defeated the Bengals in an overtime divisional bout against the Cincinnati Bengals, confidence has plummeted.
This is a curious change. Yes, the Ravens have issues defensively, namely their secondary and the growing frustration for the head coach despite the team’s success are likely the driving factor, but the Ravens are 3-2 and now have significant wins over pre-season favorites to push for the Super Bowl? It’s not as if they suffered significant injury that would cause such displeasure. Just an interesting situation.
To go along with the fan confidence is our second poll question, which asked what Ravens fans expected the team record to be after Week 5. The majority said they were expecting only a single mark in the losing column.
First, I admire the confidence of fans as 97% had this team above .500 after Week 5. Not that it is such a shock, seeing as this team was and is a playoff contender or greater. But, still, no pessimism? Good on you.
Also, it’s strange to see just how disgruntled fans are when the majority of them saw them within one outcome differently of their expectation. The majority of fans expected 4-1. But, they dropped an ugly game (in Week 2) and now a third of the fanbase polled are unhappy with the team’s direction? The Ravens’ current record is 40% of the fanbase expected. They saw Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott and Joe Burrow on the schedule, with three of those games on the road and thought, “Yeah, they’ll probably drop two of those, sadly.” But they lost just one of these and instead gave a poor one up to the Gardner Minshew-led Raiders. The record is still the record and it’s strange to see why the first poll suggests growing frustrating after such a vital victory.
Now, as for Sunday, Ravens fans are expecting to win the “Battle of the Beltways.”
SB Nation also polled the national audience on the FanDuel’s 6.5-point spread. Just as oddsmakers like, it was split 50-50.
