Home Field Advantage
 

Just for fun, I ran some numbers on the season to try and get a feel for what's happening when we're at Arrowhead vs. on the road. As a caveat, I'm considering the London game to be a road game no matter what the NFL says.

Record:
Home - 4-2 (0.667)
Road - 6-3 (0.667)

On that metric, we're pretty much even for the season. Doesn't tell us too much. However, during the win streak, more of them have come on the road than have come at home (6 vs. 4), so that's mildly interesting.

Point Differential (average):
Home: +3.5 (6 games)
Road: +10.1 (9 games)

As I'd kind of suspected, we play games MUCH closer when we're at Arrowhead. That doesn't mean we lose them, but we seem to take the foot off the pedal more at home.

Point Differential (average - win streak only):
Home: +7.3 (4 games)
Road: +20.3 (6 games)

So even when we throw out the losses and just look at margin of victory, we're blowing people out of the water on the road, but not even winning by more than one score at home.

So what the hell? Why do we shut it down at home, but step on their throats on the road? And are these trends enough to make us consider how we might play in two weeks?

:hmmm:

Just a guess, but the weather has been better for road games than home games this year??

It poured in Green Bay. I was there. In the rain.

Screw Green Bay.

It poured in Green Bay. I was there, sitting next to him. In the rain.

Screw Green Bay.

I'm guessing that because it's harder to win on the road, the game plan is more aggressive to try and take the home crowd out of the equasion early. Whatever the reason, I'm glad we're good away from home though,because it looks like we're going to have to win on the road to get to the big show

I was wondering the same thing. On the road we put up 30 points a game. At home we put up 17.

Maybe the Chiefs don't like the fanbase because we're too loud. Or maybe berry doesn't want us scoring so warpaint doesn't come out. Maybe our turf just sucks and nobody can get traction. It's gotta be sumpthin.

geez, OK, **** a home game. Play them all on the road. I had no idea that stats were that skewed.

I do find it interesting that out of 15 games this year the Chiefs have been leading at halftime in 9, and have won 8 of those games. In the 5 losses, we were ahead at halftime once, tied once, and behind 3 times.

So if you want to look at the bright side, it's fair to say this is not a team that is going to surrender a lead very often. It makes sense, the team is ideally built to hold a lead. But if you are a member of the CP brain trust, you'd look at the 6 times we weren't winning at the half and see that we only won 2 of those games, and pronounce that we're doomed the first time we fall behind early.

I'm not sure how much you can read into just this. You'd have to look at how many pass plays vs run plays are called in each half when ahead vs when behind, and because it's Andy Reid, you'd have to find some way to judge how conservative a play is. A pass might just be one of the lame screens he calls all the time and actually not be a more aggressive call than a run play.

It's just an anomaly. If we played 162 games a season like MLB, it would trend the opposite way.

I really believe this is a big part of it. Reid doesn't want the crowd to stay in the game in the away games so he keeps the foot on the gas a bit longer to make sure they are put away. At home, he isn't so worried about it so he shuts it down and goes conservative once we get a lead.

Analysis like this probably needs to have a situational factor. Like who we were playing and where it went on the schedule and what actually factored into the wins and losses.

Might even throw conference results into the discussion, since we're talking primarily about potential games wild card weekend. 4-1 at Arrowhead, 5-1 away from home.

Personally I'd rather play at home, regardless.

Could be the start of a Hemingway novel.

1. Beat Oakland.

2. Beat Houston.

and go from there

The offense completely stalling does not indicate the Chiefs are taking their foot off the gas. Chiefs have some offensive problems, mainly the OL. They're playing terrible right now. The Chiefs are winning despite the lackluster play on offense because they're stepping up on defense and they're creating key turnovers at opportune times and sometimes they're scoring pts on defense. When this team's offense stalls, it stalls for a couple of qtrs until the defense bails them out.

It's kind of refreshing the Chiefs are a good road team. It used to be they could never win road games.