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| Thursday, November 2 By Greg Garber ESPN.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
While your hearts are yearning; Though your lads are far away They dream of home. There's a silver lining Through the dark cloud shining..." — Lena Guilbert Ford, from "Keep the Home Fires Burning," 1915 In the NFL, where the home fires have burned brightly for 80 seasons now, playing at home has always been the silver lining. Traditionally, home is where the heart has been. Not anymore. In the harsh light of parity/mediocrity, silver has turned to tin. At the season's midpoint, the homefield advantage has all but disappeared. It is a myth. In fact, it is rapidly becoming a homefield disadvantage. Playing at home, with all the comfort and fanatical support that comes with it, NFL teams are a middling 66-62 (.516). That's a bare four games over .500. This, of course, means that visiting teams are an alarming 62-66. This is a certifiably dangerous precedent: The worst previous homefield winning percentage (see chart below) in the last decade is .549 in 1993. Ridiculous, it seems, but it's all too true. The Jacksonville Jaguars, a proud playoff team for the last four seasons are a disturbing 1-3 at ALLTEL Stadium this year. "It's not only us; it's happening across the board," said Michael Huyghue, Jacksonville's senior vice president of football operations. "For a variety of reasons, the homefield advantage isn't what it used to be. "There really isn't much difference between a home game and an away game." "Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner." — Sir Thomas Browne, from "Religio Medici,"1642 The Washington Redskins, a team loaded with savvy veterans from Bruce Smith to Deion Sanders to Irving Fryar, have been generous to a fault at FedEx Field. In the two prime-time games there so far this year, they are 0-2. The Redskins fell to Dallas on Sept 18 and, most recently, to Tennessee, 27-21. "We've lost two big games at home on Monday night, Washington quarterback Brad Johnson said afterward. "You've got to win these games at home." Lately, it hasn't been happening. — Sir Edward Coke, from "The Third Institute," 1644
— John Howard Payne, from "Home Sweet Home," 1823 And you thought Dorothy coined that phrase in "The Wizard of Oz." Another myth shattered. It wasn't that long ago that Green Bay and Denver were places that were clinically hopeless for visiting teams. The Packers won 25 straight games at Lambeau Field between 1995 and '98, the second-longest home streak in league history. The Broncos won 24 straight at Mile High Stadium, the third-longest such streak. The deterioration of homefield dominance has come swiftly. Dallas and San Francisco, the dominant teams of the 1990s, are 1-3 at Texas Stadium and 3Com Park, respectively. The Bay Brothers, Green and Tampa Bay, are a generic 2-2 at Lambeau Field and Raymond James Stadium. Denver is 2-2 at Mile High Stadium, while Pittsburgh is 2-2 at Three Rivers Stadium. "Think about what you would consider the feared places to play," Baxter said. "Lambeau, Mile High, Three Rivers ... Those places have kind of lost it." Distilled, the homefield disadvantage is just another manifestation of the NFL's free agency system that was designed to deliver parity. Consider the New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs, teams that play in distinctive arenas where fans can help dictate results. Both teams are 5-3 and in the thick of the playoff race, but the Chiefs are 3-2 at Arrowhead, and the Saints are 1-2 at the Superdome. On the road, strangely, they are a collective 6-2. "We were always, like 7-1 at home," said Huyghue of his Jaguars, "but now we're struggling. The reality today is that the result is governed by the talent you put on the field each week rather than the homefield advantage." Baxter sighs. It's just another in an endless stream of stories about the dumbing-down of the NFL. "Look, it's a watered-down league," Baxter said. "There's no doubt about it. All the old adages are out the window." Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com. | ALSO SEE
Garber: Crashing the NFL's surprise partyESPN.com's NFL Midseason Report | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
