The four home teams look like pretty solid favorites this week, but if form holds a road team will pull an upset on Wild Card Weekend. In the last 15 years, at least one road team has won in all but three years.
Home teams haven’t tended to be dominant at this stage. Overall they’re just 34-26 since the league moved to eight divisions in 2002.
ROAD TEAMS WINNING ON WILD CARD WEEKEND | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year | Road | Home | Score |
2002 | Atlanta | Green Bay | 27-7 |
2003 | Tennessee | Baltimore | 20-17 |
2004 | NY Jets | San Diego | 20-17 (OT) |
2004 | St. Louis | Seattle | 27-20 |
2004 | Minnesota | Green Bay | 31-17 |
2005 | • Pittsburgh | Cincinnati | 31-17 |
2005 | Washington | Tampa Bay | 17-10 |
2005 | Carolina | NY Giants | 23-0 |
2006 | --- | --- | -- |
2007 | Jacksonville | Pittsburgh | 31-29 |
2007 | • NY Giants | Tampa Bay | 24-14 |
2008 | Baltimore | Miami | 27-9 |
2008 | Philadelphia | Minnesota | 26-14 |
2009 | NY Jets | Cincinnati | 24-14 |
2009 | Baltimore | New England | 33-14 |
2010 | NY Jets | Indianapolis | 17-16 |
2010 | Baltimore | Kansas City | 30-7 |
2010 | • Green Bay | Philadelphia | 21-16 |
2011 | --- | --- | -- |
2012 | Seattle | Washington | 24-14 |
2013 | San Diego | Cincinnati | 27-10 |
2013 | New Orleans | Philadelphia | 26-24 |
2013 | San Francisco | Green Bay | 23-20 |
2014 | Baltimore | Pittsburgh | 30-17 |
2015 | Kansas City | Houston | 30-0 |
2015 | Pittsburgh | Cincinnati | 18-16 |
2015 | Seattle | Minnesota | 10-9 |
2015 | Green Bay | Washington | 35-18 |
2016 | --- | --- | -- |
In this chart above, the three teams going on to win Super Bowls are tagged with black dots.
This year, of course, is a little different. All of the home teams are favored by 6-8 points. Typically at this stage, you see a lot of 3-point favorites, which generally means the teams would be pretty even on a neutral field.
I don’t have complete gambling line information, but I found some of the numbers online. Since 2006, there have been nine teams favored by 5-9 points in the wild card round, and they’ve gone 7-2. One of the upsets was pulled by Tim Tebow and the Broncos, who were playing at home. The other was San Diego winning at Cincinnati four years ago.
The Chargers also lost one of these games as a big favorite at home – to the Jets in 2004, when Nate Kaeding kept missing field goals. But the upsets don’t tend to come as readily when teams are favored by 6-plus points.
So while it’s possible we’ll see an upset this weekend, I think it’s probably slightly more likely that the four home teams will hold serve.
FIRST ROUND: FAVORED BY 5-9 POINTS | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year | Favorite | Underdog | Score |
2006 | at Philadelphia (-6.5) | NY Giants | 23-20 |
2011 | Pittsburgh (-7.5) | at Denver | 23-29 (OT) |
2012 | at Baltimore (-7.5) | Indianapolis | 24-9 |
2013 | at Cincinnati (-6.5) | San Diego | 10-27 |
2014 | at Dallas (-6.5) | Detroit | 24-20 |
2014 | at Carolina (-5.5) | Arizona | 27-16 |
2015 | Seattle (-5) | at Minnesota | 10-9 |
2016 | at Green Bay (-5) | NY Giants | 38-13 |
2016 | at Seattle (-8.5) | Detroit | 26-6 |
—Ian Allan