While MetLife Stadium has faced its fair share of criticism from the Jets and Giants fanbases for a variety of reasons since its construction, the $1.6 billion facility in the Meadowlands has actually provided the Jets with one of the largest performance boosts of any home stadium in the NFL.
I compiled the overall home and away performance for each team in the league since MetLife Stadium’s opening in the 2010 season, which equates to 64 games each at home and on the road per team. Firstly, let’s take a look at how the teams stack up in terms of difference between home winning percentage and road winning percentage.
Sporting a home winning percentage (.531, 21st) that is 17% higher than their road winning percentage (.359, 26th), the Jets tied for 9th when it came to the biggest boost to winning percentage when playing at home compared to playing on the road.
In the time span studied (2010-2017), home teams have won 57% of the time. Thus the average NFL team has had a home winning percentage 14% better than its road winning percentage. Only one team has fared better on the road than at home in terms of winning percentage; the Dallas Cowboys.
Now, historically we have tended to see that point differential is a better indicator of true performance and therefore future success than winning percentage. Let’s take a look at how the teams stack up in terms of home point differential versus road point differential (far right).
With a +499 difference in their home point differential and road point differential, only the Packers have benefited more than the Jets have from playing in their own building. The Jets have a +61 point differential at MetLife Stadium, which at 22nd best in the league actually places them lower than their rank in home winning percentage (21st). The main reason the Jets rank so highly in this category is their ineptitude on the road. With a -438 road point differential, they place 30th in the league, ahead of only the Jaguars and Browns. They’ve been demolished at an alarming rate on the road, losing a league-high 18 road games by three scores or more (17+ points) since 2010.
Why the Jets have done so much better as home is anybody’s guess. Are they just that bad on the road? Or is MetLife somehow really helping a team that could be even worse? Over their 8 year stretch at MetLife, even though that includes only one playoff appearance, the Jets have won 6+ home games three times (2011, 2013, 2015). They had the same amount of such seasons in 26 years at Giants Stadium.
We know that Jets fans have the potential to be among the very most raucous fanbases in the NFL, but with the team’s struggles, attendance has dwindled at times. Whatever the reason, it’s interesting to see them have some of the most extreme home/road splits in the league since heading to MetLife. In the eight seasons prior, their home/road splits were almost dead-on with league average.
What do you make of these numbers?
Poll
Is MetLife Stadium an advantage for the Jets?
This poll is closed
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29%
Yes, the environment (fans/location/weather) is definitely an advantage for them
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12%
Yes, but only based on their statistical performance boost there and not necessarily the environmental factors
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43%
No, their terrible road play is the only reason they fare so highly in these numbers
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13%
No, they don’t have a *major* home-field advantage and these numbers will normalize over time