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As football fans prepare themselves for the four NFL playoff match ups this weekend here is some quick is quick, fun and thoroughly unscientific polling compliments of ESPN’s SportsNation program.
Fans throughout the country routinely cast their votes on a range of sports related topics each day. In addition to their recently premiered TV program humorously tracking and analyzing the opinions of sports fans nationwide, ESPN.com goes one-up on most other websites. Their criteria for the straw poll-style questions is similar but their colorful maps indicating where support for a particular response is coming from is rather unique. Each state is represented, the whole numbers of votes and selection percentages show. Answers are colored by responses allowing for a map that delivers an affect similar to Electoral College projections shown by publications come election time.
With the start of the NFL playoffs looming this weekend today’s big topic on ESPN is of course football. The four match ups are against the Eagles and Cowboys who will tangle in Big ‘D’ tomorrow night, the Bengals and Jets earlier in the afternoon. On Sunday fans can check out highly touted contests between the Patriots and Ravens in addition to the Packers and Cardinals. Here are some of the results according to “Sports Nation”.
Which team will win the NFC Wild Card game in Dallas?
Total Votes: 87,833 (11:15 AM, Friday)
Dallas Cowboys: 53%
Philadelphia Eagles: 47%
Notes: The narrowly favored Cowboys received a majority of votes in 32-states in addition to the 55% of the vote from nearly 6,100 residing outside of the United States. Not surprisingly 78% of the 9,165 voters from the Cowboys home state of Texas pick them to win – their highest level of support in the country. They break 60% in four other states as well; Arkansas (69%), Oklahoma (67%), South Dakota (65%) and Minnesota (64%). The Eagles meanwhile are the choice in fifteen states including the District of Columbia. Logically Philadelphia draws its highest level of support in Pennsylvania (68%) and neighboring states such as Delaware (60%) and New Jersey (56%). Saints fans who saw their team suffer their first defeat at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys four weeks ago are picking the Eagles by 57% in Louisiana. Wisconsin where the Packers could potentially host a home game versus Philly in the NFC Championship also like the Eagles 54% of the time. In both instances the level of preference for a particular team to win probably outweighs the unbiased pick of who will win. Four additional states; Alaska, Illinois, Michigan and Massachusetts are split about 50-50 between each opponent.
Which team will win the NFC Wild Card game in Arizona?
Total Votes: 36,860 (11:30 AM, Friday)
Green Bay Packers: 70%
Arizona Cardinals: 30%
Notes: Far less sports fans lent their opinion on the upcoming Packers-Cardinals game than the Eagles showdown in Dallas. Perhaps this contributes to a Packers landslide victory through ESPN polling as a result. Seven in ten fans chose Green Bay, one of the hottest teams in football to pull off the modest road upset against the defending NFC champion Cardinals in Arizona. Only the state of Arizona has confidence in the home team’s chances of victory this week as 74% of the current 1,662 pick the Cardinals. By comparison Wisconsin received a far higher number of votes (4,583) in spite of being a smaller populated state. Their beloved Packers pulled in a whopping 94% of the vote in the land of Cheese Heads. Confidence in the Cardinals chances was pretty marginal all over the country. The Cards break the 40% threshold in only three states away from home; Arizona neighbors Utah (42%) and New Mexico (42%) in addition to Wyoming (40%) where just 65-votes have been cast from the smallest U.S. state. Conversely 21-states pick the Packers by more than 70% of the vote. In seven states that percentage exceeds three-quarters of the voting population led by the 78% in Delaware.
Which team will win the AFC Wild Card game in New England?
Totals Votes: 37,339 (11:45 AM, Friday)
New England Patriots: 52%
Baltimore Ravens: 48%
Notes: The closest vote in any of the four games this weekend comes out of New England where the home team Patriots edge the Baltimore Ravens 52-48%. Voting is so close in fact the five states; New York, Ohio, South Carolina, New Mexico and California essentially split 50-50 between the two teams. Furthermore if these results were reflected in a Presidential election there would currently be no winner in the Electoral College. The Ravens with a lower percentage of the popular vote would take home 24-states and 223 “electors”. The leading Patriots meanwhile with 22-state wins would collect 196-votes with 119 remaining “too close to call”. Support outside of the country is more decisively in favor of New England (59%) probably due to their higher profile as a three-time Super Bowl champion in the decade. Not surprisingly the Patriots are most popular in New England. 90% of votes in Massachusetts, 89% in Maine, 88% in New Hampshire and 84% in Rhode Island believe the Pats will win Sunday. 81% of Maryland residents and 63% in Washington D.C. think it will be a Ravens victory meanwhile. Pennsylvania was narrowly split 51-49% in favor of Baltimore as well.
Which team will win the AFC Wild Card game in Cincinnati?
Total Votes: 40,320 (12:00 PM, Friday)
Cincinnati Bengals: 60%
New York Jets: 40%
Notes: The Jets may have crushed the Bengals in last week’s season finale but a clear majority of “Sports Nation” believes Cincinnati will come out on top of Saturday’s playoff contest. Six in ten nationwide are choosing the Bengals and the Jets receive majority support from none outside of New York’s tri-state area of New York state (74%), New Jersey (69%) and Connecticut (59%). The Bengals meanwhile generate support for their postseason chances from better than 70% of voters in Ohio (81%) and three of its neighbors; Kentucky (79%), West Virginia (77%) and Indiana (70%). Of the 2,645 fans who cast votes from outside the United States the Bengals were the pick by a similar 61-39% margin. Like the other AFC match up between New England and Baltimore the Bengals-Jets contest features a team with a 10-6 record hosting a 9-7 club. The NFC meanwhile has two 11-5 teams going head-to-head in Dallas this weekend and a 10-6 Cardinals team hosting an eleven-win Packers squad. All four games are close-calls according to sports betters. The Eagles as being favored to lose by a mere four-points are the biggest underdog of the first playoff round.
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