<header style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><hgroup style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">[h=1]Safe at Home[/h][h=3]Who has the best home-field advantage in the NFL? The numbers will surprise you.[/h]</hgroup><cite style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; line-height: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(119, 119, 119);">By Bill Barnwell on <time style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline;">December 20, 2013</time></cite><aside class="page-actions" style="margin: 0px 0px -2px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block;">
</aside></header>NFL teams toward the top of the standings aren't just fighting for a playoff spot; they're fighting for home-field advantage, too. Home-field advantage is hardly a cure-all, considering that the last three Super Bowl champions have only played a combined two of eight possible playoff games at home, but there are teams for whom it would provide an obvious opportunity. Think about the 2009 Saints, a team that won the Super Bowl with two games at home, built on a scheme that seemingly does much better at home than in the possibly blustery conditions of road football. They're 4-0 in the playoffs at home with Drew Brees around and 0-3 on the road. Think they want to stay home for as long as possible this year?
Of course, Seattle currently has a reputation as having the best home-field advantage in all of football. Seattle has talked about its 12th Man having an impact for decades, but the most recent run linking the Seahawks' fans to that unofficial title really began after they beat those same Saints in the 2010 playoffs, with a raucous crowd causing a seismic monitoring station to register a small tremor during Marshawn Lynch's legendary touchdown run. The Seahawks will play at home this week with a chance of sealing home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. It seemed like a good time to figure out if they really do have the best home-field advantage in football. In doing so, I found another matchup with playoff implications from this week's games that might be swung by a dramatic home-field advantage, one I never expected until running the numbers.
To figure out who has the best home-field advantage in football, I went through the recent past and figured out the point differential for each team in their regular-season home and road games.[SUP]1[/SUP] To figure out their home-field advantage, I subtracted the road differential from the home differential and divided by two (since we're measuring home-field performance versus, theoretically, a neutral field). Games that weren't played at a team's typical home stadium, like the London international series or Buffalo's annual game in Toronto, were considered to be neutral-site games and excluded from the study.
As an example, take the home-field performance of the Seahawks since 2002, when they opened their new stadium in downtown Seattle. The average Seahawks home game over that time frame has seen them win by exactly one touchdown, 7.0 points. Only four other teams have won their home games by a larger average margin than the Seahawks. Those teams are each better on the road, though, than Seattle; the Seahawks lose their average road game by 3.3 points. That's a swing of 10.3 points the moment Seattle gets on a plane, which suggests that Seattle's home-field advantage is worth 5.2 points. That is, as you might expect, the most impressive observed home-field advantage in football during that time frame.
Here's a table with each team's home-field advantage in its current stadium, leaving out any games from before it moved into its new stadium. This only includes games since 2002, since that's when the NFL expanded to its current 32-team size, divisional structure, and schedule.
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</aside>Did you expect the Ravens to have the second-best home-field advantage in all of football? Me neither. Since 2002, the Ravens have been significantly better when they're in the Inner Harbor than they have been on their travels outside of Maryland. I know what you're about to say. Yes, the Ravens just won a Super Bowl while winning two road games. This study doesn't include playoff games in an attempt to keep strength of schedule relatively consistent from team to team. And it's not like the Ravens are a bad road team, as they have the ninth-best average point differential for an NFL team on the road. They're just much better at home.
That small fact is about to become very meaningful for Baltimore. The Ravens are about to play their two biggest games of the year, and home-field advantage comes up as a topic in talking about both of them. On Sunday, Baltimore will host New England in an important game, one it would obviously rather play at home, given its success at M&T Bank Stadium. The week after, it has to travel to Cincinnati to play its divisional rival. If it can beat the Patriots and the Bengals, Baltimore would lock up the AFC North and get to play its first playoff game at home, which would be a huge boon to its chances of making another deep playoff run.
</aside></header>NFL teams toward the top of the standings aren't just fighting for a playoff spot; they're fighting for home-field advantage, too. Home-field advantage is hardly a cure-all, considering that the last three Super Bowl champions have only played a combined two of eight possible playoff games at home, but there are teams for whom it would provide an obvious opportunity. Think about the 2009 Saints, a team that won the Super Bowl with two games at home, built on a scheme that seemingly does much better at home than in the possibly blustery conditions of road football. They're 4-0 in the playoffs at home with Drew Brees around and 0-3 on the road. Think they want to stay home for as long as possible this year?
Of course, Seattle currently has a reputation as having the best home-field advantage in all of football. Seattle has talked about its 12th Man having an impact for decades, but the most recent run linking the Seahawks' fans to that unofficial title really began after they beat those same Saints in the 2010 playoffs, with a raucous crowd causing a seismic monitoring station to register a small tremor during Marshawn Lynch's legendary touchdown run. The Seahawks will play at home this week with a chance of sealing home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. It seemed like a good time to figure out if they really do have the best home-field advantage in football. In doing so, I found another matchup with playoff implications from this week's games that might be swung by a dramatic home-field advantage, one I never expected until running the numbers.
To figure out who has the best home-field advantage in football, I went through the recent past and figured out the point differential for each team in their regular-season home and road games.[SUP]1[/SUP] To figure out their home-field advantage, I subtracted the road differential from the home differential and divided by two (since we're measuring home-field performance versus, theoretically, a neutral field). Games that weren't played at a team's typical home stadium, like the London international series or Buffalo's annual game in Toronto, were considered to be neutral-site games and excluded from the study.
As an example, take the home-field performance of the Seahawks since 2002, when they opened their new stadium in downtown Seattle. The average Seahawks home game over that time frame has seen them win by exactly one touchdown, 7.0 points. Only four other teams have won their home games by a larger average margin than the Seahawks. Those teams are each better on the road, though, than Seattle; the Seahawks lose their average road game by 3.3 points. That's a swing of 10.3 points the moment Seattle gets on a plane, which suggests that Seattle's home-field advantage is worth 5.2 points. That is, as you might expect, the most impressive observed home-field advantage in football during that time frame.
Here's a table with each team's home-field advantage in its current stadium, leaving out any games from before it moved into its new stadium. This only includes games since 2002, since that's when the NFL expanded to its current 32-team size, divisional structure, and schedule.
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| Team | Home PD | Road PD | Diff | HFA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seahawks | 7.0 | -3.3 | 10.3 | 5.2 |
| Ravens | 8.7 | -1.6 | 10.2 | 5.1 |
| 49ers | 3.0 | -5.6 | 8.6 | 4.3 |
| Cardinals | 2.3 | -6.3 | 8.6 | 4.3 |
| Vikings | 4.2 | -3.8 | 8.0 | 4.0 |
| Jets | 1.6 | -6.1 | 7.7 | 3.8 |
| Rams | -1.6 | -9.2 | 7.6 | 3.8 |
| Bills | 0.7 | -6.4 | 7.1 | 3.6 |
| Lions | -2.1 | -8.8 | 6.8 | 3.4 |
| Packers | 8.2 | 1.5 | 6.7 | 3.4 |
| Giants | 3.3 | -3.3 | 6.6 | 3.3 |
| Chiefs | 2.2 | -4.1 | 6.3 | 3.2 |
| Cowboys | 4.0 | -2.1 | 6.1 | 3.1 |
| Colts | 3.4 | -2.6 | 6.0 | 3.0 |
| Texans | 0.1 | -5.5 | 5.7 | 2.9 |
| Saints | 6.1 | 0.5 | 5.6 | 2.8 |
| Bears | 3.1 | -2.4 | 5.6 | 2.8 |
| Steelers | 7.1 | 2.0 | 5.1 | 2.6 |
| Chargers | 6.9 | 1.9 | 5.1 | 2.6 |
| Broncos | 4.2 | -0.6 | 4.7 | 2.4 |
| Falcons | 2.9 | -1.8 | 4.7 | 2.4 |
| Jaguars | 0.2 | -4.5 | 4.6 | 2.3 |
| Titans | 1.3 | -3.2 | 4.5 | 2.3 |
| Browns | -2.6 | -6.5 | 3.8 | 1.9 |
| Buccaneers | 0.6 | -2.8 | 3.4 | 1.7 |
| Patriots | 10.4 | 7.2 | 3.2 | 1.6 |
| Raiders | -4.0 | -7.0 | 3.0 | 1.5 |
| Bengals | 0.6 | -2.1 | 2.7 | 1.4 |
| Dolphins | 0.1 | -2.5 | 2.6 | 1.3 |
| Eagles | 3.6 | 1.5 | 2.1 | 1.1 |
| Washington | -1.5 | -3.4 | 1.9 | 1.0 |
| Panthers | 0.6 | -0.8 | 1.5 | 0.8 |
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</aside>Did you expect the Ravens to have the second-best home-field advantage in all of football? Me neither. Since 2002, the Ravens have been significantly better when they're in the Inner Harbor than they have been on their travels outside of Maryland. I know what you're about to say. Yes, the Ravens just won a Super Bowl while winning two road games. This study doesn't include playoff games in an attempt to keep strength of schedule relatively consistent from team to team. And it's not like the Ravens are a bad road team, as they have the ninth-best average point differential for an NFL team on the road. They're just much better at home.
That small fact is about to become very meaningful for Baltimore. The Ravens are about to play their two biggest games of the year, and home-field advantage comes up as a topic in talking about both of them. On Sunday, Baltimore will host New England in an important game, one it would obviously rather play at home, given its success at M&T Bank Stadium. The week after, it has to travel to Cincinnati to play its divisional rival. If it can beat the Patriots and the Bengals, Baltimore would lock up the AFC North and get to play its first playoff game at home, which would be a huge boon to its chances of making another deep playoff run.
