Home-field advantage (HFA) is the inherent benefit each team has when playing in their home stadium. In the NFL, a rough estimate of seasonal HFA can be calculated by differentiating point totals between the home-team and the visitor; last season, league-wide HFA settled near 1.7 points.
The value of HFA has been long ingrained into our fandom. However, some corrections must be made to what we perceive that value to be.
In the NFL, it is not unusual for individual teams to experience heightened periods of HFA. These periods of success, however, are not indicative of some future advantage and often linger in the minds of fans and sports bettors alike.
For example, over the past half-decade, the Seattle Seahawks’ esteemed HFA of the Legion of Boom era has all-but vanished, yet nobody has seemed to notice.
Seattle Seahawks Rolling HFA'
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2021 |
| 4.76 | '5.87 | '5.16 | '4.10 | '1.94 | '3.79 | '2.03 | '2.45 | '0.49 | 0.85 |
An important note: For the remainder of the article, HFA will be described as a team’s average margin of victory when playing in their home stadium versus on the road. In an effort to minimize variance, each measure of HFA will be calculated over the previous five seasons with extra weight given to more recent years.
Also of note: The 2020 season has been omitted because games were played in mostly empty stadiums due to COVID-19. Games played at neutral sites have also been discarded.'
Furthermore, HFA on the whole has been gradually declining over the years, and the longstanding axiom that home-field is worth three-points in the NFL is no longer true.
League-Wide Rolling HFA
| 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
| 2.74 | 2.72 | 3.09 | 2.31 | 2.49 | 2.51 | 2.44 | 2.28 | 2.62 |
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2021 |
| 2.60 | 2.78 | 2.69 | 2.28 | 2.37 | 2.39 | 2.37 | 1.56 | 1.60 |
Additionally, on a game-to-game basis, a team’s HFA is almost unpredictable. Myriad underlying factors believed to influence a team’s HFA include:
- Game Importance
- Weather
- Stadium Attendance / Noise Levels
- Grass Field v. Artificial Turf
- Opponent Travel Distance
- Opponent Rest v. Home Rest
… To name a few.
Intuitively, HFA is not created equal, and despite overall HFA being in the midst of a gradual decline, certain teams have punctuated their advantage in recent seasons.
Top Rolling HFA Entering 2022
| GB | PIT | MIA | JAX | NYJ | DAL | HOU | CHI | DEN | MIN |
| 5.21 | 3.79 | 3.53 | 3.28 | 3.09 | 3.03 | 2.99 | 2.79 | 2.49 | 2.46 |
Note: while some teams on this list were among the worst in the NFL, their heightened measure of HFA is simply a reflection of how much worse they performed away from their home stadium; as is the definition of HFA.
In summation, any accurate prediction of HFA in 2022 would be a measure of sheer luck. Past successes are not indicative of some future advantage; and, however stimulating, purely ranking teams’ HFA entering the season does not offer much utility of its own. While I could expound some proprietary measure of HFA, a more useful investment is likely to uncover what oddsmakers discern each team’s advantage to be.
Calculating HFA Prior to the 2022 Season
The crux of the idea is that the lookahead lines for every game of the 2022 season must provide an intrinsic measure of what oddsmakers believe each team’s HFA to be. And thus, by this measure, there must be value in teams whose true advantage deviates most from what the sportsbooks deem it to be.
By scaling each spread line to an opponent’s projected win total, and by differentiating each team’s spread in home vs. away games, it is possible to quantify a .
The purpose of scaling each spread line to a win total is meant to minimize the effect that varying strength of schedule would have when comparing each team’s advantage.
E.g., a six-point favorite versus an opponent with a win total set at 11.5 would be weighted near equal to a favorite of eight points versus a team with a win total set at 8.5.
Market-Derived HFA for the 2021 Season
| SEA | 3.55 | MIA | 2.16 | CAR | 1.79 | PHI | 1.02 |
| TEN | 3.22 | GB | 2.10 | KC | 1.77 | SF | 1.02 |
| MIN | 2.87 | LAC | 2.06 | LV | 1.73 | DET | 0.96 |
| LAR | 2.69 | ATL | 1.95 | JAX | 1.69 | ARI | 0.96 |
| NE | 2.60 | BUF | 1.88 | PIT | 1.66 | TB | 0.90 |
| NYJ | 2.40 | CIN | 1.86 | NO | 1.48 | CHI | 0.69 |
| DEN | 2.34 | NYG | 1.83 | WAS | 1.25 | HOU | 0.35 |
| DAL | 2.19 | IND | 1.81 | BAL | 1.20 | CLE | — |
Note: Browns games have been omitted from the data entirely with their futures market still being established. Keep in mind that this has some effect when calculating Market-Derived HFA for teams that will play Cleveland this season.
This new metric is simply a measure of the degree to which change in venue alters each team’s spread throughout the season, and it averages out to roughly 1.8 points with the omission of Cleveland Browns games. A larger number indicates a greater disparity in home vs. away spreads, and thus a greater Market-Derived HFA.
Finding Value in Market-Derived HFA