Home-field advantage a dead commodity in today's NFL
Competitive balance in the NFL used to be measured by the glut of similar win-loss records.
Now, the formerly ominous task of an NFL road game is being debunked as a myth. This season, teams are so evenly matched that NFL visitors boast a razor-thin advantage in overall win-loss record.
And to the great delight of bookmakers, road teams are nearly a combined 20 games above .500 against the point spread.
Casual sports bettors, nicknamed “squares” by sharp gamblers, typically flock to wager on favored home teams.
“Road-team success has led to better results for the book because the public, for the most part, has not agreed on which side of the ticket to place the majority of bet slips,” said Sunny Gupta, spokesman for Tipico Sportsbook. “With parity in the league being at this level, the public is having a tough time finding an edge week to week.”
The trend has shifted violently, from an October when the casual-supported home favorites fared well, to an avalanche of upsets that struck the first three Sundays of November.
“The road underdogs doing so well makes it better for the books … just think of all the parlays that ruins,” said Jim Carr, a spokesman for Caesars Sportsbook who crunched the numbers to find road teams through Thanksgiving were winning at their greatest rate since 1972.
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And just when that trend peaked, with all three road teams winning Thursday, bettors were confounded again because home teams rallied to win eight of the 12 Sunday-Monday games, covering the spread in nine games.
As longtime director of the well-respected Las Vegas Superbook, Jay Kornegay still shudders to consider the liability he’s going to face this weekend as the majority of bettors line up in herds to bet the seven teams favored by a touchdown or more.
The irony is five of those prohibitive favorites are visitors: Indianapolis -8.5 at Houston; Arizona -7.5 at Chicago; Tampa Bay -11 at Atlanta; Minnesota -7 at Detroit; and Philadelphia -6.5 at the New York Jets.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Rams are favored by 12.5 points over the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Kansas City Chiefs are 10-point favorites at home against the Denver Broncos.
“If we get a majority of those winning and covering, that spells a long day for us,” Kornegay said.
Bettors aren’t in the mood to hear complaints from the books, and even the conservative Kornegay admits, “generally, yes, there are more underdogs on the road than at home, so yes, we’re doing well.”
“We’ve seen the tide turn, and it's dwindling the value of playing at home in the NFL,” he said.
This week, the road team is favored in eight of 14 games.
Following the Washington Football Team’s 17-15 victory over visiting Seattle on Monday night, visitors are 90-89-1 this season — the road teams' best winning percentage since an anomaly 1983 campaign when visitors started 87-80-1.
More astounding, this year's road teams are a staggering 99-78-1 against the point spread, which ranked as their best showing since 2008 before Sunday's action began, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
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In addition to practice-week coaching measures aimed at addressing home crowd noise, the visitors’ coach-player communication has improved.
Kornegay also theorizes “it’s mainly because traveling just isn’t as hard as it was in the day ... players have got their own cooks, their own menus, their own trainers and everything they need.”
“The luxury jets are very comfortable and they get to these cities a lot faster than they once did,” he said. “All of those variables have boosted the performance of the road teams.”
Tipico’s Gupta said his book has noticed sharp bettors reacted to the trend of visiting victories. There’s been a “slow down from live-betting the favorite.”
Gupta explained a common sharp strategy is to wait and live-bet the favorite if they're trailing early in the game, to lock in more favorable odds.
“With so many upsets and road victories this year, that strategy has not paid off and teams like the (defending AFC champion) Chiefs (4-7 against the spread) are not bailing out the public like we've seen in the past,” Gupta said.
The most bankable teams are the Arizona Cardinals and New England Patriots, who are each unbeaten on the road with six and five victories, respectively, while compiling eight wins against the spread (ATS).
The top ATS team is the Green Bay Packers (10-2), who along with the Dallas Cowboys (8-3 ATS) have five road triumphs.
“The NFL is the toughest league to handicap," Kornegay said. “Look, as we get to Week 13 and we’re seeing the 4-7 Giants and 4-7 Bears considered ‘in the (playoff) hunt,’ that equates to parity. Week in, week out, it’s very difficult to predict these outcomes.”
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