The Indianapolis Colts enjoy one of the 10 best home-field advantages in the NFL. It's not just because of the game-day experience. It's also what the statistics say when you compare home-field winning percentage to overall winning percentage for the NFL’s 32 teams.
When you crunch the numbers for which teams have benefited the most from home-field advantage since 2008 - the year the Colts moved into Lucas Oil Stadium - Indianapolis ranks 10th on the list.
We first calculated the home field record for every team in the NFL since the start of the 2008 season. That alone is not the best way to determine which teams play better at home than on the road, though. The better teams overall naturally have better home records.
Indianapolis Colts fans can crunch the numbers
So, we took it one step further and calculated the difference between each team’s home winning percentage at home and their overall winning percentage. The bigger the difference, the better the team’s performance at home compared to on the road.
We used the teams’ records in their current home stadiums. The Raiders' record in Oakland, for example, does not factor into these rankings.
Indianapolis is 157-135-1 overall since the start of the 2008 season, good for a .538 winning percentage. The Colts are even better at home with an 89-58-0 record and a .605 winning percentage at Lucas Oil Stadium – a difference of +.067 better at home than overall and one of the 10 biggest differentials in the league.
Here’s the full top 10:
- 1. Green Bay - +.113
- 2. Cleveland - +.096
- 3. Buffalo - +.081
- 4. Miami - +.080
- 5. Baltimore - +.080
- 6. Atlanta - +.076
- 7. Carolina - +.075
- 8. Jacksonville - +.074
- 9. Denver - +.073
- 10. Indianapolis - +.067
Wondering if the Colts’ home-field performance was driven by top-notch quarterback play during the Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck heydays? Curious if Indianapolis leaned on home-field more often in the quarterback carousel years since Luck’s retirement?
As it turns out, neither is true. The Colts’ home field winning percentage differential since Luck’s retirement is the ninth-highest in the NFL, just one spot better than Indianapolis’s ranking over the entire Lucas Oil Stadium era.
In terms of the actual percentages, the Colts are actually slightly less reliant on home-field advantage in the post-Luck era, with a +.059 difference between home winning percentage and overall winning percentage since 2019.
If you’re wondering, the NFL team that benefits the least from home-field advantage is the Los Angeles Chargers, with a difference of just +.005. It makes sense – the Chargers are tenants at what is actually the home field of the Los Angeles Rams.
Among teams that have played in the same stadium since 2008, home-field advantage has meant the least to the Washington Commanders. Washington has been almost equally below average on the road and in the nation’s capital, with a difference in winning percentage of just +.008 better at home.
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