Harder to win on road in 2005

[wskin44]

Comparing the 2005 season to date to the previous 4 seasons, the homefield advantage is significantly stronger this season.

Historically teams win 57.7% of their home games. This season teams are winning 66.4% of their home games. The highest percentage was 61.3% in 2003.

The difference in the NFC is even bigger. The 4 year average home winning % in the NFC is 56.3%. The highest % was in 2003 at 61.7%. This year NFC teams are winning 71.2% of their home games, 14.9 percentage points higher than the 4 year average.

I don't know if it traditionaly gets easier to win on the road as a season goes on, but for right now if you want to make the playoffs you better win at home. Particularly in the NFC.

The NFC East is 13-1 at home. The only home loss was dallas' loss at home to Washington. The NFC East will be won by whatever team can hold serve at home and then steal some road wins.

[tr1]

Excellent post. I was thinking the same thing, but didn't check any stats. Thanks for the facts.

[wskin44]

It seemed harder to win on the road this year so far, so I got curious and checked the stats.

Another interesting thing is the home/road stats for playoff teams. In the previous 4 seasons teams that made the playoffs won 76% of their home games and 62.1% of their road games.

In the NFC Playoff teams win an average of 67.9% of their games, but last year that dropped to 61.5%. We may be headed for that kind of a year again. A 9-7 NFC East team should make the playoffs if a team does slightly better than 500 in its own Division (due to tie breakers).

[SkinsNut73]

Very interesting. Thanks for doing that research.