Wild Card Homefield Trends

This is the 9th season of the four division setup in each conference. It has drastically changed the playoffs because there is one less wild card, and it pretty much makes it impossible to play a home playoff without winning your division. We are just hours away from the start of Wild Card Weekend, and here is a trend that I have noticed over the last 8 years (02-09) with the record of home teams in wild card games as opposed to the seven years prior to the realignment (96-01).

2002-2009 Home teams went 18-14 (.563)

1995-2001 Home teams went 22-6 (.786)

I break it down further:

2002-2009 the #4 seeds went 9-7

1995-2001 the #4 seeds went 11-3

2002-2009 the #3 seed went 9-7

1995-2001 the #3 seed went 11-3

Normally, this one is pretty easy to explain. With the extra division the home teams are simply not as good as the teams they are facing. No year better illustrates this then this season. None of the teams hosting playoff games this weekend have better records than their opponents, including a 4-game spread between the Saints and Seahawks.

Remember the 4-5 game was between 2 wild card teams before 2002, so the 4 seed was the better team throughout the regular season thus the 10-2 record.

Here is another interesting note: Two years ago, the Cardinals became the first 4 seed to make it to the Super Bowl since the league expanded to 4 divisions. There have been 2 Wild Cards that have gotten to the Super Bowl in that span (Steelers '05, Giants '07)