FanPulse Week 13: Confidence dips following another Colts loss; Thanksgiving Day matchups; Which side dish gets dumped forever?

Welcome to SB Nation FanPulse, a survey of fans across the NFL powered by SurveyMonkey. As the season kicks off in just a few weeks, each week, we’ll send 32 polls to 100+ plugged in fans from each team. Colts fans, sign up HERE to join FanPulse.

Last week our FanPulse surveys came out as the Indianapolis Colts were on the wrong side of the final score in a Thursday Night Football matchup with the Houston Texans. The Colts’ fan base had regained some confidence after a dominating performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars, but it wouldn’t take long for the loss to the Texans to bring that level back down as a result.

After sitting at their season low previous to the Week 11 game against the Jaguars, Colts’ fans bounced back to around an 80 percent confidence level after the Colts’ first double-digit win of the year.

However, when the offense looks near pathetic in the passing game in the biggest game of the year, it’s hard for fans to continue to keep the optimism at that level. Thus, the confidence level in the team has again dropped dramatically, and nobody can blame fans for feeling this way.

After this recent dip in confidence, the level sits at 52 percent as the Colts prepare to head into Week 13 against the Tennessee Titans. The Titans aren’t going to be a pushover either, as their offense has experienced a bit of a resurgence after sitting Marcus Mariotta earlier in the season.

T.Y. Hilton has now been ruled out, and the Colts’ injury concerns appear to be going in the wrong direction as the week progresses. We could see another drastic drop in confidence if the Colts can’t get things corrected to get a victory Sunday. But, to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t expect much of a bounce back in confidence even with a win — pending a dominant performance.

And now for some Turkey Day questions about the two most important things to any of us — food and football.

Today’s football slate includes three games, one of which is as synonymous to Thanksgiving as the food on your plates. The Detroit Lions are currently taking on the Chicago Bears, and midway through the third quarter lead the Bears with David Blough under center for the Lions.

Naturally, this was not America’s most anticipated game on the schedule, however, the game is offering a lot more than many of us expected. Two teams with losing records isn’t exactly a huge draw, but it is Thanksgiving, and everyone’s watching it regardless.

The next game in today’s lineup is the New Orleans Saints at the Atlanta Falcons, and though the Saints are one of the best in the NFC, the Falcons have left a lot to be desired this season. Again, this is not the matchup people are most excited about today in spite of it being the primetime game of the day.

The primetime matchup this evening is not the most anticipated matchup, but the afternoon game is. The 8-3 Buffalo Bills travel to face the 6-5 Dallas Cowboys, and despite the Cowboys’ record to this point, they’re widely regarded as one of the NFL’s top offenses. This is — by a wide margin — the game of the day for fans, and it should be.

Maybe the Falcons will put a quality game together as they have a few times over the past several weeks, and maybe the NFC South matchup will give us more than we bargained for. However, the Bills’ defense going head-to-head against the Cowboys’ offense is the matchup of the day looking ahead.

Now for the food portion of the survey!

This week our survey asks: Which side dish would you remove from the menu forever?

First and foremost, those of you who voted for mashed potatoes should be ashamed of yourselves. There is so much you can do with mashed potatoes, so many flavors and ingredients can be added to make it the best side of on the menu. Not to mention, if you eat turkey and noodles, or chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes becomes the perfect bed for those noodles.

Thankfully, most of you have your head on straight and mashed potatoes received the fewest amount of votes.

Stuffing, on the other hand, strangely received a minimal amount of votes which I would have expected to get quite a bit more. There’s not much else to say about stuffing, but it received the second-fewest amount of votes. My guess is that it was due to the other sides listed — but one is literally a staple of the Thanksgiving Day menu.

Candied yams/sweet potato casserole received the same percentage of votes as another side dish, and this was easily predicted. There are two reasons for this. First, yams aren’t exactly one of the most popular dishes across the board, and a lot of people likely haven’t ever even eaten them before. The other, if you have kids, or if you tried it once as a kid and didn’t like them, it’s a hard dish to return to.

Now, we see the other dish receiving the bulk of the votes was green bean casserole. What is wrong with you folks? It’s the only time of year that these are served for the most part, and they’re delicious. You can add french fried crunchy onions to add texture if you don’t like the softness of the dish, ad a little salt and pepper goes a long way.

Yet, here we are with the survey, and the masses have spoken to rid their tables of candied yams/sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole. Either way, I feel sorry for your collective tummies if any of these dishes aren’t on your menu today.

Happy Thanksgiving Colts family, from everyone here at Stampede Blue!