Does Home Field Advantage Exist in the NFL?

A statistical look at how NFL teams perform at home and why they win — or lose.

The prevailing wisdom, reinforced by sports journalists and Vegas oddsmakers alike, is that home teams have a definite, albeit marginal advantage in the NFL. Whether it’s the comfort of their locker room, or the deafening roar of the 12th man drowning out opponents’ offensive play calls, or the (apparently legal) distraction tactics used to misdirect kickers, analysts contend that NFL teams certainly stand to benefit from playing at home. But is that really the case? Let’s take a closer look.

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right — Maya Angelou.

Home teams in the Super Bowl Era

The data does show that home teams have historically done well in the Super Bowl era, winning on average about 57% of their games. But what is perhaps most surprising is the consistency of home win percentage over the last fifty plus years.

A note for the statistically minded: a quick analysis shows just how static the overall home team winning percentage has been over the years. The data has a standard deviation of just 3.4% for a mean of 57%, and a trend line for this plot has a slope of 0.00000198.

The NFL has unquestionably changed over time — in 1966, there were no replay reviews and no coach’s challenges; field goal uprights were at the goal line, and concussions were an afterthought; defenses were actually allowed to touch the quarterback from time to time. Yet, even as the game has evolved, home teams have continued to win at virtually the same rate year after year. The rule changes, the increasingly analytical decision-making, and the offensive revolution have all been a zero-sum amalgam for home field advantage.

Home is where the football lies

NFL teams do generally win more at home, but some franchises perform significantly better in their own stadiums than they do on the road. Three AFC North teams — the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cincinnati Bengals, and the Baltimore Ravens — combine cold-weather outdoor stadiums with smash-mouth football to make visiting players miserable. The Denver Broncos exploit the cold weather and the stadium’s high altitude to their benefit.

Home-away record differential from 1966 to 2018 week 8

Seahawks fans are among the loudest in the world, stifling opponents’ play-calling. The NFC North, which has its share of cold-weather games, features prominently on the list of hometown bullies even though the Lions and Vikings have played most of their games indoors. Two warm-weather teams — the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Houston Texans — round out the top 10, suggesting there is more to home field advantage than simply freezing your opponents.

Cold Weather Blues

Regardless of the reasons for home dominance, the question remains: do low temperatures help the home team? Peyton Manning’s cold-weather woes are widely documented, and also vehemently denied by Manning. I would be tempted to argue that really cold and really warm game-time weather would favor the home team, while indoor or moderate-weather games would be much more competitive or at least be more dependent on other factors. In fact, home teams have won roughly 58% of their outdoor games, and only about 55% of indoor games. Now, before you tell me that this is not a significant difference, remember the relatively stable home win percentage and the low standard deviation of 3.4%. These preliminary results merit a deeper look into the effect of game-time temperature on home team records, and in fact the detailed data does show something slightly different from my initial hypothesis.

The R-Square for this data plot is 0.8841, which is quite exciting. This is data from 9,109 games aggregated to 10 data points, so obviously the R-Square doesn’t really have the same fidelity, but the trend is certainly telling.

An analysis of all outdoor NFL games from 1966 to 2018 demonstrates that as the temperature falls, home team winning rates rise commensurately. Win rates for warmer weather games (70° F and over) are, in fact, very close to the home team win rate for dome games, suggesting that cold weather does play a significant role in determining home-field advantage. One can certainly question whether good teams like the New England Patriots just happen to play home games in colder temperatures, or whether the cold weather helps these teams achieve better home records, but the trend is certainly undeniable.

Home Dominance in the 21st Century

Of course, there are some stadiums that you just don’t want to play in. Teams visiting the Gillette Stadium, for example, have lost to the New England Patriots 84% of the time since the stadium opened in 2002. The Patriots have an excellent away record as well (0.669) — which is why they are notably absent from the list of hometown bullies — but they are very hard to beat in Foxborough.

Home team win records by stadium since 2000 (minimum 100 games played at stadium)

The usual suspects round out the list, with M&T Bank Stadium and Heinz Field representing the predictable AFC North bastions of home rule, and Lambeau Field and CenturyLink Field duly making their appearance. This list considers winning records only, so it is not just a measure of home field advantage, but also the overall dominance of these five teams since 2000. These teams all play in cold cities or loud stadiums, but having elite quarterbacks and great coaching staffs “probably” doesn’t hurt either.

All data used in this article is obtained through a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license from spreadspoke. The charts include regular-season, non-neutral location games played from 1966 to 2018 week 8, unless otherwise noted. Data for historical teams is merged with current teams, i.e. Houston Oilers are merged with Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Colts are merged with Indianapolis Colts, etc. Weather was not available for 222 outdoor games, and these games were excluded from the temperature analysis. All charts and analysis presented here are the sole opinion of the author of this article.