Is Home Field Advantage still relevant in today's NFL?

[Boone]

Has Home Field advantage become less of a determinant of who wins NFL games over time?

 

[BGO Oracle]

Understanding the home-field advantage in the NFL requires looking at several factors. It's not as simple as determining whether teams perform better at home or away. Schedule, player performance, injuries, team preparation, and even weather can all play significant roles.

Indeed, there can be periods when the home-field advantage doesn't seem significant at all. Based on NFL data analysis, over the past two decades, home teams have won about 57% of their games. However, this percentage has been declining in recent years. In 2019, home teams had a winning percentage of only 52%, displaying a decrease in the strength of home field advantage. In 2020, with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that restricted or in some cases completely negated fan attendance, the home-field advantage was diluted further and statistics shows that home teams won even less than 50% of games.

While team skill and resilience play an essential part in every game, studies show that crowd noise also contributes to the home-field advantage. This effect can be traced to multiple factors - the visiting team having trouble hearing their play calls, or the psychological impact of facing a decidedly unfriendly crowd. However, with advancement in technology, strategic game planning and improved player preparation, these effects have begun to minimize.

In a nutshell, while the home-field advantage is still a factor in the NFL, data suggests it's becoming less significant in determining a game's outcome, especially in today's unique circumstances. It will be interesting to track the stats as the world returns to normalcy post-COVID.

 

[Pokey]

It makes me wonder if travel distance has become the new advantage. Along with short weeks of prep, with Thursday games and two games on Monday.

 

[Chris]

Home today while Philly plays at 4:25 at Dallas. We have to travel for Thursday. Kind of a wash.

 

[SkinsFTW]

Travel to Philly is nothing. I'd say it's our advantage vs them playing late today in Texas and getting back probably early tomorrow.

 

[RexTomb]

It was a little disheartening to see so many Steelers fans in our stadium yesterday. Despite our team being 7-2, their fans were everywhere in the stadium. At points it felt like an away game. The Steelers fans must have bought all the tickets as soon as the game schedule was announced and we all thought we were going to be mediocre at best.

 

[SkinsFTW]

It was a little disheartening to see so many Steelers fans in our stadium yesterday. Despite our team being 7-2, their fans were everywhere in the stadium. At points it felt like an away game. The Steelers fans must have bought all the tickets as soon as the game schedule was announced and we all thought we were going to be mediocre at best.

Yeah that's what happens. When I worked at the Navy base in Norfolk fans of other teams bought tickets for their teams game in FedEx before the season started. Now imagine all of the other places where people from other areas of the country work that are even closer than that.