Home Field Advantage?

[Henry]

For those of you wondering what's happened to our home field advantage since we left RFK. I saw this in USA Today.

http://usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2002-09-24-home_x.htm

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Visitors are feasting on home teams' cooking

By G.E. Branch III, USA TODAY

Home isn't exactly what it used to be in the NFL so far this season. After Tampa Bay's Monday night victory, home teams are 23-23 (.500). A similar season-long performance would continue a four-year trend of road teams winning at an increasingly higher rate. As recently as 1999, home teams were winning at a 60% rate. The biggest advantage of playing at home is having crowd noise disrupt the opposition's offense.

Road getting homier

Five seasons ago the home team won 60% of all games, but road teams are gaining ground. This season the home and road games are practically even. Records of home teams:

Year W L T Percent

1997 145 93 2 .608

1998 151 89 0 .629

1999 148 100 0 .597

2000 138 110 0 .556

2001 136 112 0 .548

2002 23 23 0 .500

However, players and coaches say that general parity and the spreading of talent since liberalized free agency began in 1993 has eaten into the home-field edge that traditionally has been worth about three points.

According to USA TODAY sports analyst Danny Sheridan, there really isn't that much disparity to begin with in what constitutes a home-field edge in the NFL.

Downtrodden teams such as Detroit rate only a 1½-point advantage for being at home, and powers such as Denver (high-altitude), Miami (humidity) and New England (reigning champs, enthusiastic fans) rate a 3½- to 4-point advantage for playing at home.

"You probably have 10 teams in the league that are below average by NFL standards, and each of these teams plays eight home games like everybody else," Sheridan says.

Offensive tackle Brad Hopkins and his Tennessee Titans are experiencing firsthand the demystification of playing at home.

They were 8-0 during the regular season their first year, 7-1 the second, 3-5 last season and 1-1 after blowing a fourth-quarter lead Sunday against the Cleveland Browns.

"It is a lot more quiet than it was before; that is noticeable," Hopkins says.

Home teams are winning by 12.8 points a game, with Miami averaging a league-high 27.5 points a game.

Making a debut in a new stadium this season has not bucked the .500 trend, either. New England and Houston won; Detroit and Seattle lost.

"It all comes down to believing in yourself," Oakland veteran defensive back Rod Woodson says. "If you believe in yourself, it doesn't matter where you are playing."