Miami Dolphins fan confidence: What a difference a win can make

What a difference a week – and a win – can make. The Miami Dolphins beat the Los Angeles Rams on Monday Night Football in Week 10, looking like a complete team with both the offense and defense executing well. It was not a perfect game, and it was not the full explosiveness the Dolphins showed in 2023, but it was a much better performance from start to finish than what we have been seeing in 2024.

Miami moved to 3-6 with the win, keeping their playoff chances alive. How did the fan confidence react to the win? Our SB Nations Reacts poll, brought to us by FanDuel sportsbook, returns for Week 11 to give us that answer.

Are the Miami Dolphins headed in the right direction? – Week 11 results

The 2024 season has been a frustrating one for the Dolphins and for Dolphins fans. A team that was discussed throughout the offseason and preseason as a potential contender for a deep AFC playoffs run, the team staggered through the first nine weeks of the season, barely keeping their feet under them as they took repeated punches to the face. It was ugly, it was disheartening, and it was unacceptable to the fans.

Our weekly SB Nation Reacts poll dropped as low as five percent of the fans thinking the team was headed in the right direction during our Week 5 survey – an all-time low for our survey. Fans were abandoning ship and the apathy was clear throughout the week. The poll saw some rebounding during Weeks 7 and 8, with 20 and 22 percent of the fans thinking the team had turned the corner, but it quickly fell back to single digits before Week 9. After a good performance in a loss against the Buffalo Bills in Week 9, the fans seemed to think there might be some hope for the floundering Dolphins – the fan confidence moved up to 12 percent.

Besides the Bills, the Dolphins’ bane has been a primetime game for the past several years – especially one on the road. In Week 10, Miami faced the primetime schedule, visiting the Los Angeles Rams on Monday Night Football. The Dolphins finally came to play, with both the offense and defense looking more like the preseason expectations. Miami came away with a 23-15 victory, moving to 3-6 on the season. The fans responded to the win with a jump in the fan confidence rating.

After the victory, Dolphins fans are starting to feel positive about the team again. In our latest poll, 41 percent of the fans believe Miami is headed in the right direction. As Miami returns home to Hard Rock Stadium to host the Las Vegas Raiders, will the fans also return to the stadium? Will it feel like the fans are getting back behind the team? And will Miami perform like a team looking to make a run up the AFC playoff picture?

Where will the fan confidence rating land after this week’s game? We will be back in Week 12 to take a look.

Week 1: 85%

Week 2: 82%

Week 3: 15%

Week 4: 9%

Week 5: 5%

Week 6: 8%

Week 7: 20%

Week 8: 22%

Week 9: 7%

Week 10: 12%

Week 11: 41%

Dolphins opponent fan confidence: Las Vegas Raiders

The Las Vegas Raiders head into Miami Sunday afternoon looking to snap a five-game losing streak. Coming out of their bye week, the team has made changes across their offensive coaching staff, having fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, quarterbacks coach Rich Scangarello, and offensive line coach James Cregg. Scott Turner, working as the team’s passing game coordinator, has been elevated into the offensive coordinator role, with the team adding Norv Turner, Scott’s dad, as an advisor to help fix the offensive issues the team has been having.

You know the season has not been going well when you are having in-season coaching changes. At 2-7, the Raiders are struggling to find any consistency. The SB Nation Reacts fan confidence poll at Silver and Black Pride, SB Nation’s Raiders team site, demonstrates that inconsistency. Starting at 76 percent this season, it dropped to 30 percent in Week 2, but leapt up to 86 percent in Week 3. After that, however, the fan confidence plummeted, where it has been in the mid-teens for most of the year. Heading into today’s game in Miami, only 18 percent of Raiders fans think their team is headed in the right direction.

Raiders fan confidence:

Week 1: 76%

Week 2: 30%

Week 3: 86%

Week 4: 17%

Week 5: 38%

Week 6: 17%

Week 7: 20%

Week 8: 14%

Week 9: 16%

Week 10: 24%

Week 11: 18%