NFL trend to pay attention to: home teams are winning more this year

[jedinite]

Home cooking tastes better than ever in the NFL. Through seven weeks of the season, home teams are winning by a ratio of nearly 2-to-1 — a 65.6% clip, on pace to mark the best home-team winning percentage since the 1970 merger with the AFL.

The widest gap for a full season since 1970 occurred in 1985, when home teams won 64.3% of games. Last season home teams had a 56.6% victory rate.

"I'm a little surprised" by the increase, CBS analyst Phil Simms says. "It tells you the talent level is so even in the league, with so many equal parts and so many close games, that something like crowd noise can be the difference."

Of 102 games played through Monday, home teams won 67 times. The total includes the New York Giants' Week 2 victory against the New Orleans Saints, when the league switched the site to Giants Stadium from the Louisiana Superdome after Hurricane Katrina and designated it as a Saints "home game."

As the Giants' 4-0 record on their home field and 0-2 mark away from the Meadowlands suggests, the advantage has an influence on the standings. All seven NFL teams that are unbeaten at home this season lead or are tied for first place in their divisions.

"Maybe it's just a quirk in the scheduling," NFL Films President Steve Sabol ponders, "where a lot of the stronger teams have had more home games."

It is not uncommon for teams to feed off increasingly active home crowds.

"I've seen coaches like (Atlanta's) Jim Mora, raising their hands and turning to the stands, exhorting the fans to make noise," Sabol says. "Obviously, they think it affects the game. Just think about the audibles."

This weekend just one road team is favored by oddsmakers: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-1), visiting the San Francisco 49ers (1-5).

The Philadelphia Eagles (3-0 at home, 1-2 away) must buck the trend at the Denver Broncos to maintain a share of the NFC East lead Sunday. The AFC West-leading Broncos are 4-0 at home.

The Chicago Bears (playing at the Detroit Lions) and the Buffalo Bills (at the New England Patriots) can claim the lead in the NFC North and AFC East with victories Sunday. But neither team has won a road game this season.

Of course, there are exceptions.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, trailing the Cincinnati Bengals by a half-game in the AFC Central, are 3-0 on the road this season and have won a franchise-record 10 consecutive road games. Their two losses came at Heinz Field.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/footb...me-teams_x.htm

[King Yao]

Whenever something different happens in sports, there are always commentators, journalists and radio personalities that try to explain the reasons why those things happened. Oftentimes their reasonings and explanations are interesting and useful. But many times, the reasoning is due to complete randomness. No one ever says that.

Do they think the fan noise wasn't a factor in previous years? Is it brand new to this year? Is traveling tougher now on chartered flights this year than it was in 1995?

In this case in the NFL, the home teams are just rolling the dice better this year. No need to get excited on a sample size of 100 games that only made a small deviation from the expectation.

[scott8]

Common sense has no business here.

[YoureToast]

[ QUOTE ]
Whenever something different happens in sports, there are always commentators, journalists and radio personalities that try to explain the reasons why those things happened. Oftentimes their reasonings and explanations are interesting and useful. But many times, the reasoning is due to complete randomness. No one ever says that.

Do they think the fan noise wasn't a factor in previous years? Is it brand new to this year? Is traveling tougher now on chartered flights this year than it was in 1995?

In this case in the NFL, the home teams are just rolling the dice better this year. No need to get excited on a sample size of 100 games that only made a small deviation from the expectation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where have you been King? This is a great post and you didn't even try. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[King Yao]

I hadn't seen much activity here in the past, but just thought I'd take a look, and it seems there is a lot more stuff here than I expected.

[YoureToast]

[ QUOTE ]
I hadn't seen much activity here in the past, but just thought I'd take a look, and it seems there is a lot more stuff here than I expected.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes there is and you need to really set some of us (including me) straight. Quite frankly, many of us are floundering a little bit. But there is some great insight here -- its the filtering thats hard.

[ QUOTE ]
Whenever something different happens in sports, there are always commentators, journalists and radio personalities that try to explain the reasons why those things happened. Oftentimes their reasonings and explanations are interesting and useful. But many times, the reasoning is due to complete randomness. No one ever says that.

Do they think the fan noise wasn't a factor in previous years? Is it brand new to this year? Is traveling tougher now on chartered flights this year than it was in 1995?

In this case in the NFL, the home teams are just rolling the dice better this year. No need to get excited on a sample size of 100 games that only made a small deviation from the expectation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, agree 100%.

[YoureToast]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Whenever something different happens in sports, there are always commentators, journalists and radio personalities that try to explain the reasons why those things happened. Oftentimes their reasonings and explanations are interesting and useful. But many times, the reasoning is due to complete randomness. No one ever says that.

Do they think the fan noise wasn't a factor in previous years? Is it brand new to this year? Is traveling tougher now on chartered flights this year than it was in 1995?

In this case in the NFL, the home teams are just rolling the dice better this year. No need to get excited on a sample size of 100 games that only made a small deviation from the expectation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, agree 100%.

[/ QUOTE ]

You better hope he's right! (Which of course he is)

[MyTurn2Raise]

Probably just noise....Home teams did real well in the MLB for the first 1/2 of the year and then it was road teams in the second half. Happens often in the 4 major sports that for a few months either the home or road team does excellent.