What We Learned from Polling Packers Fans in 2021

One of the most rewarding things we do at The Power Sweep is polling Packers fans. Every Wednesday during the season we post a series of questions on our Twitter feed, asking fans to give us their positive, neutral, or negative impressions of key Packers figures and the team as a whole.

Gathering this week-to-week data reveals some interesting trends about how Packers fans feel about their team, and this year was no different. Surprisingly, a lot more appears to go into how people feel about the team than just wins and losses.

Here’s what we learned from polling Packers fans this season.

Packers fans felt good about the team overall — except after Week 1

Overall, Packers fans felt pretty good about the team this season on a week-to-week basis, except after their season-opening debacle against the Saints.

After the Packers were shellacked in Jacksonville, the team’s overall approval rating dropped to just 25.6%, the lowest number we’ve ever seen in three years of polling about the team.

But after the Week 1 loss, people’s feelings steadily improved and stayed high once they crossed the 90% approval threshold. In fact, after the Packers’ loss to the Vikings in Week 11, the team-level approval rating never dipped below 90% until the untimely end of the season.

Packers fans like Brian Gutekunst and Matt LaFleur

Generally, approval ratings for the five men we poll about tend to follow the team’s performance — but not always. This season, Brian Gutekunst and Matt LaFleur enjoyed generally positive reactions from Packers fans.

Brian Gutekunst started the season a bit on the low end, but that seemed to be because Packers fans largely weren’t sure what to make of his roster. And that makes sense: with David Bakhtiari, Za’Darius Smith, and Jaire Alexander all banged up early in the season, there were a lot of unknowns on the Packers roster. That’s reflected in the data below: though his approval rating never broke 80% in the first six weeks of the season, fans were more likely to have a neutral opinion of Gutekunst than a negative one.

Fans were even more positive about Matt LaFleur. His approval rating never dipped below 71% all season, and he received a 100% approval rating four different times late in the season. In a season that brought a lot of uncertainty, fans were clear on their feelings about Matt LaFleur.

Nobody experienced a bigger reversal of fortune than Joe Barry

Packers fans changed their mind on Joe Barry in a big way. The Packers’ defensive coordinator opened the season as a big unknown — 96% of voters had a neutral opinion of him in Week 1. Fans quickly made up their minds, though. After the Packers’ defense got dump trucked in the season opener, Barry’s approval rating hit 0% in Weeks 2 and 3, with more than 70% of voters saying they disapproved of the job he was doing.

But things steadily improved for Barry. As the Packers’ defense rounded into form, Packers fans rewarded the defensive coordinator with higher and higher approval numbers, culminating in a season-high 95.9% figure after the Packers beat the Rams in Week 12. 

That number had some staying power, too. Though the Packers’ defensive fortunes waned down the stretch, fans didn’t turn on Barry. His disapproval rating never surpassed 8.3%, and no fans had a negative opinion of Barry heading into the Packers’ Divisional Round game or in the season-ending poll.

Packers fans have complicated feelings about Aaron Rodgers

Mark Murphy caught some heat when he described Aaron Rodgers as “a complicated fella” last spring, but Packers fans largely agree with him. Rodgers’ approval ratings were all over the shop in 2021. The 20% approval rating he posted in Week 2 is the lowest number we’ve ever seen for him, and he took another dip under 50% in Week 11 in the wake of his COVID-19-related absence from the Chiefs game. But Rodgers also recorded five different weeks with an approval rating above 90%. 

It’s all bad for Maurice Drayton

Poor Maurice Drayton. Saying “things didn’t work out” is a spectacular understatement while also being completely accurate. Drayton’s numbers started bad and got worse. Fans gave him a fair shake to start the season, waiting to make up their mind about the Packers’ new special teams coordinator. Well over 50% of fans had a neutral opinion of him through Week 9. But by Weeks 10 and beyond, fans had seen enough. Down the stretch in the 2021 season, he never had a disapproval rating of less than 50%. That’s pretty harsh, but ultimately fair, too. Matt LaFleur agreed, giving Drayton the ax just this week.

The bottom line: on-field performance matters, but it’s not the only thing voters weigh

This season revealed an interesting — and promising — trend in Packers fans: they weigh more than just what happens on the field when voting about the team they follow. Matt LaFleur’s team was hit and miss at times this year, but fans believed in what he was doing and voted positively as a result. Aaron Rodgers played at or near an MVP level for most of the year, but off-field frustrations pushed his numbers down. That’s exactly the sort of thoughtful consideration we hope to see from fans, and we hope it continues into 2022 and beyond.

Curious about more polling data? Here are the numbers on everyone we’ve polled about since the start of the 2019 season.