Home teams win more often in the NFL playoffs than in the regular season. From the 1999 through the 2025 postseasons, home teams won 181 of 281 playoff games played at a home stadium (64.4%). In the regular season over the same years, home teams won 56.2% of non-neutral games.
Home teams in each playoff round
| Round | Games | Home wins | Home win % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wild Card round | 119 | 70 | 58.8% |
| Divisional round | 108 | 75 | 69.4% |
| Conference championship | 54 | 36 | 66.7% |
Some of the playoff edge comes from seeding. The better team usually hosts, so a high home win rate measures matchups as much as crowds. The Wild Card round sets division winners against wild cards, and its home teams won 58.8%. The Divisional round brings in the top seeds, which had a week off: the top two in each conference before 2020, and only the No. 1 seed since. Home teams won 69.4% there, the highest rate of any round. Every Super Bowl in this period was played at a neutral site, so none of them count.
The 2020 test: home field without crowds
The 2020 season, played mostly in empty or limited-capacity stadiums, is the closest thing to an experiment. From 1999 to 2019, home teams won 57.0% of regular-season games and outscored visitors by 2.4 points a game. In 2020 home teams won 50.2%, and the average home margin fell to +0.1 points. Since 2021 the home win rate has been 53.8% and the margin +2.1. That is a partial recovery that has not returned to the earlier level.
The slide did not start with the empty stadiums. Counting every game by its listed home team, neutral sites included, home teams went 132–123–1 in 2019, and 2019 was already the weakest home season of the 1999–2019 stretch. In 2020 the listed home teams went 127–128–1. That was the only season in the 1999–2025 archive in which road teams won more games than home teams.
Regular-season home results by year
The best season for home teams was 2003 (61.6%). The worst was 2020 (50.2%). Each year links to its final standings where those are available.
| Season | Games | Home wins | Home win % | Avg. home margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 248 | 148 | 59.7% | +3.1 |
| 2000 | 248 | 138 | 55.6% | +2.8 |
| 2001 | 248 | 136 | 54.8% | +2.0 |
| 2002 | 256 | 148 | 57.8% | +2.2 |
| 2003 | 255 | 157 | 61.6% | +3.6 |
| 2004 | 256 | 145 | 56.6% | +2.5 |
| 2005 | 255 | 150 | 58.8% | +3.6 |
| 2006 | 256 | 136 | 53.1% | +0.8 |
| 2007 | 255 | 147 | 57.6% | +2.9 |
| 2008 | 254 | 145 | 57.1% | +2.6 |
| 2009 | 255 | 146 | 57.3% | +2.3 |
| 2010 | 254 | 142 | 55.9% | +1.9 |
| 2011 | 255 | 145 | 56.9% | +3.3 |
| 2012 | 255 | 146 | 57.3% | +2.6 |
| 2013 | 253 | 152 | 60.1% | +3.3 |
| 2014 | 252 | 144 | 57.1% | +2.5 |
| 2015 | 253 | 136 | 53.8% | +1.5 |
| 2016 | 252 | 145 | 57.5% | +2.6 |
| 2017 | 251 | 143 | 57.0% | +2.5 |
| 2018 | 253 | 152 | 60.1% | +2.3 |
| 2019 | 251 | 130 | 51.8% | 0.0 |
| 2020 | 253 | 127 | 50.2% | +0.1 |
| 2021 | 269 | 137 | 50.9% | +1.6 |
| 2022 | 265 | 149 | 56.2% | +2.1 |
| 2023 | 267 | 149 | 55.8% | +2.7 |
| 2024 | 267 | 140 | 52.4% | +1.7 |
| 2025 | 265 | 142 | 53.6% | +2.2 |
How WHYNFL counted
Final scores from the WHYNFL results archive, 1999–2025. International and other neutral-site games are excluded because neither team was at home. Ties count as games but not as home wins. Average home margin is home points minus visitor points per game.
Related: NFL stadiums · NFL playoff history · current NFL standings
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