Lions approval poll: Jim Caldwell (September 2017)

It’s officially game week for the first time in the 2017 regular season. In less than a week the Detroit Lions will kick off the season against the Arizona Cardinals at Ford Field.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, it’s time to take a quick baseline of where the fanbase is at. While we’ll have our normal predictions of the year running all week, we also want to see where fans are at with the current administration.

Last week, general manager Bob Quinn pulled in a 95 percent approval rating, granted it was just a couple days removed from signing Matthew Stafford to a long-term contract. Still, Quinn’s approval ratings have been steadily in the 90th percentile for a good 10 months now.

It hasn’t been nearly as rosy for head coach Jim Caldwell. There was skepticism about when he was first hired. He entered the 2014 season with just a 67 percent approval rating. But after a strong start, he jumped into the high 80s and 90. Since then, however, it’s been up and down with an approval as high as 91 percent and as low as 8 percent.

December 2016: 44% approval
November 2016: 76% approval
October 2016: 57% approval
September 2016: 22% approval
January 2016: 59% approval
December 2015: 12% approval
November 2015: 8% approval
July 2015: 91% approval
January 2015: 89% approval
December 2014: 85% approval
November 2014: 87% approval
October 2014: 94% approval
September 2014: 96% approval
August 2014: 67% approval
June 2014: 77% approval

We haven’t checked in with the Lions fanbase since December of 2016. The Lions were in the midst of their late-season slide that caused the Lions to miss out on a division title and drop yet another playoff game. Many wanted Caldwell’s head after the losing streak, but a good 73 percent of fans approved of bringing him back one more year.

Now Caldwell is entering the final year of his contract, and many believe he enters the season already on the hotseat. If the Lions can’t reach the playoffs and take the next step to actually win in the postseason, it goes without saying that many will lose faith in him entirely.

So as we stand on the line between offseason and regular season, let’s poll the audience again.