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Baltimore Ravens Have Best Home Field Advantage in the NFL

By Brett Foote

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Dec 14, 2014; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco (5) drops back to pass against the Jacksonville Jaguars at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

There’s nothing more exhilarating than the roar of a crowd, except when you’re playing offense and trying to hear a play call.  That’s what makes home field advantage such a big thing in sports.  Playing in front of a friendly crowd, preparing in your own facility.  Heck, sleeping in your own bed.  Home field advantage is such a big deal, it is routinely a factor among those who make odds.

But what team would you think had the best home field advantage in the NFL, if someone asked? Certainly you might think of the Seahawks first, with their “12th man” mentality.  Maybe the Packers, who are tightly woven into their respective community, or the Eagles, who basically beat up any opposing team’s fans who decide to come root for them in Philadelphia (OK, maybe not ALL the time).  In all of these guesses, you would be mistaken.

Turns out, the Baltimore Ravens are actually the team that appears to have the overall best home field advantage, at least according to an analysis completed by Sporting Charts.  Their formula was rather simple – compare each NFL team’s win percentage to their percentages as a visitor and home team over the last eight years (when the league moved to the eight division format).  The Patriots take the crown as the team with the highest overall and home winning percentage.

But it’s the Ravens who lead all NFL teams in win percentage difference between home and away games with a whopping 35% disparity.  Out of 94 games won, the Ravens have secured 61 of them at home and only 33 on the road.  For comparison’s sake, the Patriots have 123 wins, with 67 coming at home and 56 on the road (13.75% difference).  So the honor may not be such a great one, after all.

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Even more interesting is how the New York Giants fared.  The G-Men are the only team in the NFL to have a higher away winning percentage (52.5%) than home winning percentage (57.5%).  Otherwise, there is a clear advantage for teams playing at home – NFL teams averaged 14.46% more wins at home than they did on the road as a whole.

This study basically confirms a few things that were already common thought among NFL fans, but it’s interesting nonetheless.  Everybody knows that teams are going to have at least a slight advantage when playing at home, and Ravens fans know that the confines of M&T are going to produce wins more often than not.  So buy your tickets for the upcoming season with confidence.

Next: Flacco was Plagued by Drops in 2014

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