Home for horror days
NFL teams lose their in-house advantage
FOXBORO — The NFL, like Dorothy’s Kansas, used to be a place where everyone believed “there’s no place like home, Toto.” Not this season, Toto. As the Patriots prepare for Sunday night’s Super Bowl LI rematch against the struggling Atlanta Falcons, one advantage is supposed to be the site of the conflict. For the past 17 years, Gillette Stadium has been a place where there were few close shaves, let alone actually nicks and cuts, for the Patriots.
During the Bill Belichick era, the Patriots are 128-31, including the playoffs, at home. Add the arrival of Tom Brady as a starter a year after Belichick and their chances in their own house only improved. Brady-led teams have gone 119-21 in Foxboro, so one would think there’s no place on earth the Falcons would rather not be Sunday night than in Foxboro, right? Maybe not. Thus far this season, the Pats already have lost twice at home, its worst home start since Belichick’s first season in charge here. The Patriots were 5-11 in 2000 and went 3-5 in Foxboro. Subtract that rebuilding year and Belichick is 125-26 — a winning percentage on friendly fields of .827 — and hadn’t lost two home games in his first six starts since that inaugural season. Yet the truth is the Patriots would be 0-3 at Gillette this year had Houston safety Corey Moore not dropped a catchable interception just before Brady threw the winning touchdown pass against the Texans.
Grim as those facts are, truth be told the Falcons have fared no better at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where they are also 1-2, so it’s not like Atlanta would be looking at this game much differently if it was hosting things. So what’s the problem with these guys?
Statistically speaking, there is no problem. At least not one the rest of the league isn’t sharing in this season. While it is troubling that the Patriots’ normal dominance at home is dissipating, the fact of the matter is so is everyone else’s in the NFL. For you stat geeks sitting in your basements at home, the numbers support this oddity.
Through this season’s first six weeks, home teams have an overall losing record of 45-46 when protecting the house, a figure you might assume is bolstered by the consistently epic failures of the Browns (who can’t seem to win anywhere, including at the draft table) and 49ers, who are a combined 0-5 at home. While true, they do not stand alone.
In addition to both defending conference champions being 1-2 at home, so are the defending NFC East champion Cowboys as well as two of last year’s wild card entrants, Detroit and Oakland (going into last night’s Chiefs at Raiders game). The Giants, another 2016 wild card team, are even worse, going 0-2 at MetLife Stadium.
Through the season’s first six weeks, only four teams remain unbeaten at home — the Bills, Eagles, Packers (that’s about to change) and Seahawks. Philly and Green Bay both lead their divisions while Buffalo and Seattle trail by one game in the AFC East and NFC West, respectively. They’ve all achieved this on the strength of an axiom that doesn’t seem to be in effect much this season, which is to say winning at home is the road to the playoffs.
Historically, being overpowering at home is the most reliable way to the playoffs. Thirteen of the 51 Super Bowl champions went unbeaten at home and 19 more Lombardi Trophy winners lost only once at home. The Dolphins went 14-0 at home in winning back-to-back titles in 1972-73 and the Broncos went 16-0 at home on the way to going back-to-back in 1997-98.
The reason home field is so deeply cherished in the playoffs is it forces teams to come not only into uncomfortably hostile stadiums, but also forces them to face disconcerting environmental factors. We all know the history of dome teams made to play in freezing conditions or inclement weather (goodbye Peyton Manning), but the same applies even if you’ve been outdoors all season.
In Denver, you’re not only on thin ice but also breathing thin air. In Miami, teams used to struggle in the heat and humidity of a sunny January day after having grown used to wearing three layers of knickers before going outside to play. The opposite of the Miami Effect exists in places like Buffalo, New England, and most certainly Green Bay, where John Facenda once rhapsodized about teams struggling to win on “the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.”
Not even Brady has been immune to this over his 17-year career. Although nearly every quarterback playing today would happily take his 8-6 road playoff record (which includes 5-2 in neutral site Super Bowls), contrast it with his 17-3 home playoff record. That’s a remarkable .850 winning percentage.
In 2016, the home team won 58 percent of the time. Going into last night’s game in Oakland, the 2017 homefield winning percentage was 49.4, a loser’s number. So what’s going on here and everywhere else this season?
That’s difficult to know for sure, and over the course of the season perhaps things will return to normal, but in the opinion of one NFL executive with more than 30 years in the game the explanation is simple.
“The league has perfected parity,” he claimed this week. “Any team is good enough to win any week if they avoid making one or two critical mistakes and have some good fortune or a hot quarterback. Nearly everybody is good. Nobody is great. So you end up with ‘upsets’ that aren’t really upsets anymore and home field meaning less than it used to.”
The warning in this for the Pats Sunday night in their Super Bowl LI rematch is clear. If you’re counting on home cookin’ to win for you, you may go hungry, because from Gillette Stadium to Mile High Stadium, home field is no longer the little shop of horrors for visitors it used to be.