Falcons fans had fun in Week 14, but aren’t being tricked into greater confidence

We had some fun on Sunday, didn’t we? We enjoyed watching Vic Beasley, Takk McKinley and De’Vondre Campbell annihilate poor Kyle Allen, and we definitely loved watching Olamide Zaccheaus write himself a storybook first reception. We loved it so much that some fans might’ve been tempted to get carried away and express more confidence in the future of this football team.

I am proud to announce, however, that you guys are way too battle-scarred for that at this point in the season. Fan confidence in our weekly FanPulse survey jumped from 4% to 6% this week, which is a fancy stats-based way of saying barely.

What’s behind the lack of a real bounce? Several factors:

• The Panthers stink
• The Falcons still probably stink, if perhaps a little less than they did earlier in the year
• A game against the best team in the NFC is looming and nobody wants to get their hopes up
• This entire season has not engendered much in the way of hope that things are going to get better
• Fans saw reports that the Falcons are already over $200 million in spend for 2020 and, even though they can work with that number to get down and make the moves they need to make, it made them very sad

Any way you slice it, don’t fall into the trap of being confident about this team until they show us something worth falling in love with over the long haul. That probably won’t come until the offseason, if at all.