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In playoffs, home field isn't a clear advantage

By Peter Keating
ESPN The Magazine

Thursday, January 15, 2009

What's up with home-field advantage in the NFL playoffs? After struggling all season to gain the privilege of playing the second season on their own turf, two teams with home-field advantage lost in the wild-card round. Then, with the bye week supposedly giving an even bigger edge to home teams, three of them lost in the divisional round. Makes sense, actually, if you know how HFA works -- and what its limits are. From the dozens of academic studies on home-field advantage, three sources of ...

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