Fans of the Green Bay Packers have high expectations

Jake Ryan Jersey , and rightfully so. The team has been a serious contender in the NFC for years, though the defense has often let down the rest of the squad come playoff time. In 2014, the last time the team featured above-average units on both sides of the football, the Packers were in the NFC Championship Game and should have made it to the Super Bowl.This year, expectations were high once again, as the team shuffled the coaching staff and front office along with swaths of the the defensive roster. But though six games, the Packers are 3-2-1 and face their toughest stretch of the season in the coming weeks.That’s what makes this week’s FanPulse surveys so interesting. The results show that although a majority of Packers fans expect the team to make it to the postseason in 2018, confidence in the franchise’s overall direction is still quite low.Overall, a majority of Packers fans voted “Yes” when asked if the team would make the playoffs this year Davante Adams Jersey , with the yeas leading by a margin of 55-45 percent. However, only 32 percent of the same survey respondents said that they were confident in the team’s direction. That tells this writer that many people are expecting a disappointing one-and-done postseason for this team, which certainly would fall far short of fans’ hopes for the team. Still, Packers fans’ responses outpace the odds of the team making the playoffs according to Football Outsiders, who put the Packers at just a 43.4% chance.Another interesting note is that fans of 16 other teams have a higher confidence level in their team making the postseason, with Packers fans being the 17th to have a better than 50/50 vote. But even though the Packers sit a half-game ahead of 3-3 Chicago and Detroit in the division and in sixth place in the NFC at present, fans of both of those teams (plus fans of the Vikings) have larger portions of their fanbases that see them making the postseason. 100% of Vikings fans voted Yes, but the Lions had 66% Yes votes and the Bears 57%.As for the overall confidence index, the Packers’ numbers dropped two percent following the comeback victory against the 49ers and the bye week Corey Linsley Jersey , dropping from 34% to 32%. We’ll see next week if there are any notable changes after the Packers’ game against the 7-0 Rams. With official numbers out, here’s exactly where the Packers sit against the cap."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections The APC PodcastPackers Film RoomFantasy Football AdviceCDTShareTweetShareSharePackers officially have $14 million in salary cap space, with $4.7M needed for draft classMark Hoffman-USA TODAY SportsAll of the runaround about the Green Bay Packers’ cap space in the past week can come to an end right now. Thanks to the reporting of ESPN’s Field Yates, we have official cap numbers for every team in the NFL, and the Packers are pretty close to what we expected.In fact, the Packers’ real cap number is a tiny bit better than what is currently projected by Over the Cap, and Spotrac, both of which have the team at just under $14 million. Yates’ numbers have the team just over $14 million, at $14 Nick Perry Jersey ,004,669:Does this mean that the Packers can go out and splurge on a few more players? Probably not. As always, teams need to reserve a little bit of cap space for their draft picks, and the Packers have ten selections in the 2019 NFL Draft, including two first-round picks.However, despite the total value of the Packers’ draft pool coming in at $10.3 million — a solid number, based on the NFL’s rookie wage scale — the team only needs to reserve about $4.7 million in space to sign those players. This is because during the offseason, only the largest 51 contracts (in terms of current-year cap hit) count towards the cap. As a result, signing a draft pick drops another player down out of that Top 51 group Bryan Bulaga Jersey , while some draft picks’ contracts would not even make the Top 51.Here’s the full breakdown of the effective cap space required to sign the ten picks currently under the Packers’ control:2019 Packers Draft CapRoundPick 2019 CapReplacesNet Cap Effect RoundPick 2019 CapReplacesNet Cap Effect In this table, you can clearly see that only the first seven draft picks would displace an existing contract off the Top 51 list. Furthermore, in the case of the third-, fourth-, and fifth-round picks, the effective cap space needed to sign each player is less than $200,000.Totaling up the net cap effect of all these contracts brings the total to $4,717,318. Therefore Mason Crosby Jersey , that is the minimum amount of cap space that the team must conserve in order to remain under the salary cap by signing players drafted in these ten slots — at least for the offseason. The number may change if the Packers make any draft-day trades, but for now that number is effectively set in stone (give or take a few dollars here and there on individual contracts).Thus, with just over $14 million in total cap space and the need to retain about $4.7 million to sign the draft picks, the Packers still have a little over $9 million in leftover cap space — $9,287,351, to be exact. As a team that likes to retain a few million each year for the regular season, Russ Ball has the Packers right on track for 2019.