Miami Dolphins fan confidence following Wild Card Playoff loss to Kansas City Chiefs
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The Miami Dolphins made an appearance on the 2024 NFL playoffs, but that is all it was. The Kansas City Chiefs made quick work of the South Florida team, ending what once looked like a promising season for Miami.
Last week, the Miami Dolphins saw their hopes for a Super Bowl title come crashing to an end with a Wild Card Weekend loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. A lot went wrong for the Dolphins down the stretch of the season, leading to a once-promising campaign to end with three-straight losses and an early exit from the postseason. Penalties, miscommunication, injuries, coaching decisions, execution issues, and more all led Miami, who held the top spot in the AFC playoff seeding earlier in the year, to fall to the sixth-seeded spot and, on an extremely cold night in Kansas City, out of the playoffs.
Not surprisingly, the fan confidence in the team’s direction matches the team’s fall from a top AFC team midseason to a disappointing end of the season. When the Dolphins looked like they were the class of the AFC, and maybe the league, our SB Nation Reacts confidence poll, brought to us by DraftKings Sportsbook, reached all-time high levels. Now, as the Dolphins head home for the offseason, it has fallen to near season-lows.
Dolphins’ fan confidence
Last week’s confidence poll held steady with 58 percent of the fan responses indicating a confidence in the team’s direction after both Week 17 and 18. Miami lost to the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills in those two games, leading to the team’s Wild Card Weekend contest against the Kansas City Chiefs – and ensuring Miami would have a three-week stretch in which they faced the AFC’s top seed (Ravens), second seed (Bills), and third seed (Chiefs).
With losses in each of those three games and the team headed into the offseason, our newest fan-confidence rating fell to the second-lowest mark of the year. Just 43 percent of Dolphins fans believe Miami is headed in the right direction. It really should not come as a surprise, given how the season ended. The Dolphins have a lot of work to do to get ready for another run in 2024, and to regain the fan confidence.
2023 fan confidence history (poll taken after results from listed week):
Preseason – 83%
Week 1 – 97%
Week 2 – 97%
Week 3 – 98%
Week 4 – 89%
Week 5 – 94%
Week 6 – 98%
Week 7 – 75%
Week 8 – 95%
Week 9 – 93%
Week 10 – 94%
Week 11 – 92%
Week 12 – 96%
Week 13 – 99%
Week 14 – 40%
Week 15 – 91%
Week 16 – 94%
Week 17 – 58%
Week 18 – 58%
Wild Card – 43%
Who are the favorites to win appear in the Super Bowl? (National Survey)
This week’s SB Nation Reacts national survey – an email delivered survey for which you can sign up below – asked the fans who they believe are the favorites in each conference to advance to the Super Bowl. The survey was taken earlier in the week before the Green Bay Packers nearly upset the NFC’s top-seeded San Francisco 49ers in yesterday’s Divisional Round game, but the results believe chalk will reign supreme in each conference.
For the NFC, the 49ers received 78 percent of the responses, while the Detroit Lions were second with 15 percent. The Packers were third in the results, coming in with five percent of the vote. The 49ers, with their win yesterday, will host the NFC Championship next week, with a Sunday night kickoff at 6:30 p.m. ET on FOX. They will face either the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or the Lions in that game.
The AFC side of the vote has the Baltimore Ravens, the AFC’s top seed, as the favorite to appear in the Super Bowl, with 66 percent of the fans choosing them. The Buffalo Bills are second with 17 percent of the vote and the Kansas City Chiefs are third with 13 percent. The Ravens beat the Houston Texans on Saturday to guarantee themselves a home game for the AFC Championship next weekend, with kickoff at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday. CBS will cover the broadcast and the Ravens will host either the Bills or Chiefs.
A Ravens-49ers Super Bowl would be a rematch from Super Bowl XLVII in February 2013. That game, played in New Orleans, had the 49ers favored by four points pre-game, but the Ravens pulled off the 34-31 win, with quarterback Joe Flacco named the game’s MVP. The game also featured Ravens’ head coach John Harbaugh beating his brother, then 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh. John is still coaching the Ravens while Jim won this year’s College Football Playoff National Championship with the University of Michigan and is now one of the top candidates for open NFL coaching positions.
If you want to receive the national survey each week, sign up here to participate in the emailed surveys.
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