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Ian Allan

February 14, 2016

Home-field advantage

How much better is a quarterback when he's playing at home?

When I was doing the weekly game previews in the fall, most weeks I was pointing out that Ben Roethlisberger tends to be a lot better at home. Indeed, he’s thrown 41 TDs in his last 16 games at home, versus only 18 TDs in his last 16 on the road. Drew Brees has tended to average about a touchdown more game at home over the years, and Aaron Rodgers almost never throws interceptions at Lambeau. So now that I’ve got a little more time, I figured I’d look into the question of just how much of a difference does home-field make?

For this one, I started by pulling out all quarterbacks who’s started at least half of the time over the last five years. That is, let’s look just at the 23 quarterbacks who’ve started at least 40 of the last 80 weeks. And then let’s look at how they did at home versus the road.

Looking at the last 16 at home versus the last 16 on the road is kind of logical. There are 16 games in a season, so we think in those terms. Rodgers and Brees, for example, have each thrown 27 touchdowns in their last 16 games on the road, but they’ve thrown 42 and 39 in their last 16 at home.

But I decided instead to simply include all games in this five-year period. As more games are included, chance becomes less of a factor.

I considered listing per-game stats for each guy (with home and away all listed on one line). But I think that gets too mind-numbing for many. I work with these numbers all the time, so when I see “1.75 TDs” that means 28 in a 16-game season for me, but I don’t think that’s meaning for most readers. Similarly, I don’t think anybody wants to see that Joe Flacco has thrown for 8,513 yards in his last 37 road games.

Anyway, I ended up grab-bagging it. Some numbers are per-game, while others are totals. Those who with tech skills and pull them out and massage them into whatever format they want.

There are 23 quarterbacks. Overall, it looks like they were about 6 percent better statistically when they were playing at home. They averaged about 5 more yards per game (on average) in those games, with about an extra quarter touchdown per game. Per 16 games, they averaged 29.8 TD passes at home, versus only 25.6 TDs on the road. Rushing production (for quarterbacks) was almost exactly the same at home versus the road. At home, there quarterbacks completely 63.7 percent of their passes, a tick better than 62.5 percent on the road.

I wanted the established guys who’ve played some games. I didn’t want to pollute the deal by including wild cards like Jimmy Clausen and Ryan Lindley who’ve hardly played at all. Let’s look at guys who’ve played plenty, then measure how they’ve done at home versus the road.

But it’s not a huge difference. Of these 23 quarterbacks, 8 of them actually put up better numbers on the road. Three were over 10 percent better on the road – Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson and Peyton Manning. With the 49ers and Seahawks, I think this is influenced by those teams being better able to bludgeon opponents at home in recent years with defense and running game. I think they’ve had to open it up a little more at times on the road.

For the eight quarterbacks who’ve been better on the road, I’ve got their names in bold (their road games).

All of the other 15 have been better at home. Three have been over 20 percent better – Ryan Fitzpatrick, Roethlisberger and Rodgers. Five have been 10-18 percent better at home: Matt Ryan, Flacco, Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady and Brees.

Here are the numbers. I have listed each of the 23 quarterbacks twice. For the road numbers, I’ve put a black dot (•) in front of the player’s name. Then you see seven numbers for each player.

St = games started

Pass = average passing yards (per game)

Run = average rushing yards (per game)

TD = total TD passes

Int = total interceptions

TDR = total rushing touchdowns

Points = average fantasy points (per game) using the scoring system of 6 points for touchdowns, 4 for TD passes, 1 for every 20 passing yards and 1 for every 10 rushing yards.

PASSING, HOME vs. AWAY (2011-15)
PlayerStPassRunTDIntTDRPoints
Drew Brees40331412131429.6
Aaron Rodgers35277179113526.8
• Cam Newton392324356322425.4
Cam Newton392363961321924.9
• Peyton Manning29303-16933124.8
Peyton Manning28295-17120024.8
Andrew Luck28271225323624.6
Tom Brady4029448621624.6
• Aaron Rodgers37270187920324.3
Matthew Stafford4030077643624.2
• Drew Brees3931727242323.9
• Andrew Luck27268184832623.6
Ben Roethlisberger3528157824023.5
• Tom Brady4028928126423.4
• Russell Wilson32223425219823.4
Tony Romo3228136436122.6
• Matt Ryan4029176838222.4
• Philip Rivers4028447440122.2
Ryan Fitzpatrick33245156334322.0
Carson Palmer3228835630121.9
• Matthew Stafford4027966834321.8
Eli Manning4028027545021.7
Russell Wilson32214345415421.6
Matt Ryan4027756835121.3
Joe Flacco3726045727921.0
• Colin Kaepernick24210373214520.8
• Tony Romo3425036519120.6
Philip Rivers4026137137020.4
• Andy Dalton3824296038720.4
• Carson Palmer3026714933220.3
Ryan Tannehill32238155024320.3
Andy Dalton39226116435720.1
• Ben Roethlisberger3628544736120.0
• Eli Manning4025826341219.7
• Jay Cutler31236115026119.6
Mark Sanchez2022163126519.4
Jay Cutler35232135036319.1
Alex Smith36204255223318.9
Colin Kaepernick23207332412318.6
• Ryan Tannehill32245133730218.5
Sam Bradford2324343121017.9
• Ryan Fitzpatrick36211164440417.7
• Alex Smith3521717397317.6
• Sam Bradford2423762916117.5
• Joe Flacco3723064541117.1
• Mark Sanchez2121952422216.6

—Ian Allan

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