Saturday, February 10, 2007

Home Field Advantage and Passing

This is a follow up to the previous post, in which I looked at home and road won-loss records of all teams finishing between 6-10 and 10-6 for the years 1995-2006.

Here are the pass offense stats:

  • below 6.0 - 18 teams; .576 at home; .299 on road
  • 6.1-6.3 ypa - 34 teams; .563 at home; .419 on road
  • 6.4-6.6 ypa - 43 teams; .583 at home; .407 on road
  • 6.7 -6.9 ypa- 35 teams; .577 at home; .423 on road
  • 7.0-7.2 ypa - 29 teams; .591 at home; .425 on road
  • 7.3-7.5 ypa - 25 teams; .605 at home; .455 on road
  • 7.6-7.8 ypa - 14 teams; .580 at home; .455 on road
  • 7.9 and up - 12 teams; .667 at home; .469 on road

And here are the pass defense stats

  • below 6.0 ypa - 22 teams; .591 at home; .438 on road
  • 6.1-6.3 ypa - 35 teams; .636 at home; .443 on road
  • 6.4-6.6 ypa - 46 teams; .598 at home; .428 on road
  • 6.7 -6.9 ypa- 48 teams; .560 at home; .422 on road
  • 7.0-7.2 ypa - 34 teams; .581 at home; .414 on road
  • 7.3-7.5 ypa - 14 teams; .589 at home; .321 on road
  • 7.6-7.8 ypa - 4 teams; .563 at home; .406 on road
  • 7.9 and up - 7 teams; .464 at home; .339 on road

Teams improve their overall record as pass defense improves, but the difference between home and road performance stays fairly constant. The same is generally true of the pass offense as well. However, the 18 teams that were "poor" offensive passing teams (ypa 6.0 or lower) were horrible on the road while being decent at home.

As a result, I looked at teams who were below average in passing, while also being good at stopping the run. Here are the teams from the bottom passing offense groups of 6.6 ypa and below, sorted by their rushing defense numbers:

  • 3.5 or below - 13 teams; .615 at home; .365 on road
  • 3.6 - 3.8 ypc -30 teams; .594 at home; .350 on road
  • 3.9 - 4.1 ypc -24 teams; .583 at home; .443 on road
  • 4.2 - 4.4 ypc -18 teams; .528 at home; .396 on road
  • 4.5 and up - 9 teams; .542 at home; .417 on road

To summarize, the top 2 groups on this list are the below average passing offense, but above average run defense teams. Those 43 teams had a +.246 difference in their home winning percentage versus the road winning percentage, which equates to almost 2 more wins at home on average over the course of a season.

It appears that these types of teams (bad offense, good rush defense) have a greater road disadvantage because of the offense, but a greater home advantage because of the rush defense, creating a greater home/road differential.

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