NFL Home-Field Advantage Is Declining: Road Teams Hold Advantage Through Week 5

Home-field advantage has been a lesser factor through the first five weeks of the 2023 NFL season.

Road teams are 41-37, and 1-1 in neutral site games in London - equating to a 47.4% home record win-rate. Through 2022, home teams were victorious in 51.8% of their games.

It all started with the first game of the season when the Detroit Lions escaped Arrowhead with a 21-20 win over the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs.

Week 1 went on to feature 10 total road victories across 16 games, a season high thus far. While no other week has seen as high a total, the home losses have remained relatively consistent throughout the first five weeks with nine in Week 2, seven in Week 3, eight in Week 4 and seven in Week 5.

There have even been some dominant road victories including the New Orleans Saints 34-0 rout of the New England Patriots last weekend, the Buffalo Bills 37-3 win over the Washington Commanders in Week 3 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 26-9 victory over the Saints in Week 4.

Some reasons for this could be improved travel schedules and conditions resulting in well-rested players, or even teams improving their ability to use silent signals that prevent crowd noise from impacting on-field communication.

This decline in home field advantage has been previewed over the past few years by betting point spreads. There used to be a general rule that home teams received a three-point advantage, but that generally speaking, that has shifted toward two points and in some cases, 1.5.

There is no clearcut reason behind the lack of home-field advantage, but it seems it is not impacting the outcome of games nearly as much as it has in past seasons.