Dolphins rank last in home field advantage per ESPN

The Miami Dolphins are the worst team in the NFL for home field advantage. This according to Bill Barnwell of ESPN.

Barnwell has finished a study on his own to try and find which teams have the best home field advantage in the NFL. Miami ranks last. The question is why? It’s hard to say really because the factors he used are a bit ambiguous to be honest. While no one will argue that Seattle should sit at the top spot the parameters of the study are a bit vague.

Barnwell used the last ten years to determine his ranking and the Dolphins, well, they were not exactly lighting up the scoreboard at home over the last decade and losing seasons in all but two of those doesn’t really help matters either. So relax Dolphins fans, it’s not a slant or a smack in your face. You cheer just fine.

The problem for the Dolphins is the fact that they haven’t been very good and if you are not a good football team you don’t win at home or on the road. Now if you have a winning team that is doing better on the road than at home, it might be worth discussing.

Joel from Maine reached out to me regarding this article to see what thoughts I might have on it and my thoughts are exactly what I said above. There would be a lot more weight to this if Miami had been even an above .500 team.

Barnwell does mention the frigid temperatures of northern teams but he does not mention the heat of South Florida or the fact that Miami had given up two early to mid-September games over the past few years for stadium renovations. While he does bring up the fact Miami and other teams who have traveled outside of their home city had those games taken out of the equation, it’s still something that should be mentioned.

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Over the last two seasons however the Dolphins have played much better than in the previous ten and attendance is on a major upward tick. It was announced yesterday that the 2017 season tickets are sold out and a waiting list has been implemented for 2018.

Overall it’s hard to validate the study simply because it really isn’t conducive to actual home field advantage. If the Cleveland Browns were good does anyone believe Cleveland would not be a horrendous place to play on Sundays? Those fans are rabid. The study also says that the Raiders and Chiefs are in the bottom five. Sorry, I don’t buy that.