NFL playoffs: How much does home-field advantage help in the postseason?

NFL teams compete all season to set up the seeding that decides who gets to host playoff games and who has to go on the road to advance. In essence, teams battle for 18 weeks to determine who earns the easiest path to the Super Bowl.

And as another wild-card weekend of six games approaches, the fifth year of the expanded 14-team playoffs, it's a chance to look at the hard numbers and statistical trends. 

Just how helpful is home-field advantage in the postseason?

The simplest answer over the past three years is that, at least on the opening weekend of the playoffs, higher seeds playing on their home field have a considerable advantage, going 14-4 in wild-card games. Of the four opening-weekend upsets since the 2021 season, only one — the sixth-seeded 49ers in 2021 — has advanced beyond the divisional round. 

That isn't always the case, of course: In the previous three years, from 2018-20, nearly the opposite was true, with home teams going 4-10 in those wild-card rounds.

The NFL's current playoff model rewards only the top team in each conference with a first-round bye — the Chiefs and Lions earned those honors this season — and in three of the four years in that model, both top seeds have advanced to play the conference championship on their home field. The exception was a chaotic 2021, when the top-seeded Titans and Packers both lost by a field goal in the divisional round, sending a 2 seed, two 4 seeds and a 6 seed to the conference championship games.

Over the past four years, half of the No. 1 seeds have advanced to the Super Bowl, but only one — the 2022 Chiefs — has actually won, so there's an expectation of the unexpected. The last four Super Bowl champions included three teams not expected to make it past the