Ah, playing on the home field. The crowd behind you, the familiar turf, the home cooking. No long cross-country flights, no atypical weather, no distractions from being away from your normal environment. Possibly you’ll even catch a few breaks from the officiating crew.

You would think home field advantage would be worth a lot in the NFL. These days though it is not so clear-cut. The 2002 season as of this writing (games complete through week 11) has seen the usual generic three-point home field advantage (average home team score minus average away team score) cut in half, with home squads only posting a 1.4 point per game advantage over the visitors.

Now the subject of home field advantage is worthy of a full column (at least) in its own right, but the apparent diminishing value to playing at home sparks a question as to whether there are certain types of home teams that benefit more than others.

You can tackle this issue on a number of levels, but for our purposes today we’ll analyze teams based on their basic offensive and defensive ranks - rushing yards and passing yards.

The following table shows some situations where home teams with certain offensive/defensive characteristics have performed above or below expectations in the fifth week of the season and beyond:

Now, there were obviously many combinations of top 10/bottom 10 pairings that didn’t produce particularly interesting historical results, but the three traits above are all worth considering for a moment. The first case is simply a good defensive home team all around, and these clubs have been solid against the line. When you don’t give up a lot of points, it makes it much easier to cover a number, as a top defensive team would generally have to do.

The second case harks back to a theory regarding the NFL, which is that home teams need to run the ball, while away teams need to be able to pass it. Consequently a home team that is good at running the football but also has a stout passing defense would be expected to do well, and the results confirm this.

When both these first two trends are in effect for a particular home side (so the team is top 10 in rushing offense, rushing defense, passing defense) then the team has gone 74-42 (63.8%) against the spread.

Finally, home teams that are bad in both passing the ball and preventing the pass have been poor bets, although breaking this out we find such teams are only bad plays as favorites (13-34 for 28%) but not as underdogs (where they are 31-29 for 52%).

These angles are all worth following, and for reference the current qualifiers include:

- Top 10 Rush/Pass Defense: Carolina, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay
- Top 10 Rush Offense/Pass Defense: Philadelphia
- Bottom 10 Pass Offense/Defense: Arizona, Baltimore, Detroit, San Diego

That’s all good insight to add to any handicapping approach, but what about home teams that are among the very best in the league in a specific area?

Narrowing down our search to home teams with a top three ranking in some category, we find the following situations with winning percentages divergent from the norm:

So the results generated are slightly improved with an extremely good statistical area (as opposed to simply top 10). In the last category of a home team with a top three rushing attack and a passing attack outside of the top ten, it’s even a bit stronger for a team with a poor passing attack (ranked 20th or worse). This suggests that one-dimensional rush focused offenses can be quite successful as home sides.

Right now, the only team that qualifies under the first two situations (and the team qualifies for both) is Philadelphia. Of the top three rushing yardage teams here in 2002, all of them rank outside the top ten in passing yards - Kansas City, Minnesota, and once again Philadelphia.

Situational handicapping is something we never recommend as a stand-alone approach, but when combined with other breakdowns of a matchup (statistical projections, injuries, motivation, turnovers, etc.) they serve a valuable purpose. Long term NFL Trends are worth keeping in mind when you go to place a wager!