Profe sional football has already been forced to grapple with the fallout from COVID-19, causing major changes to the NFL Draft and the cancellation of in-person workouts during the offseason, then ultimately the entire preseason. If the NFL is able to succe sfully hold a 2020 season, it will look far different than anything that has come before it.After a week or two of regular season play, gamblers will have to quickly adjust to the new normal based on the data available. Until we have that data in hand, we're going to have to do our best to think through the ramifications of playing football during a pandemic. Today, the topic we're diving into is home-field advantage.CBS Sports insider Jonathan Jones took a close look at the impact of having limited to no fans in the stands all the way back in May, and the final part of his three-piece series focused on . I'd highly encourage you Peter Budaj Men Jersey to check out his reporting, and we're going to build on it here as part of my annual look at the role home-field advantage plays in projecting week in and week out.Before we dive into our specific proce s for 2020, here's a quick primer on why HFA matters. Historically, oddsmakers have treated HFA as being worth three points, meaning when two evenly-matched teams play, whichever one is at home will be favored by three points. However, HFA has been worth le s on average in recent years due to a variety of reasons, and the value of HFA differs team by team (for example, most fans understand it's tougher to be a road team playing the in Minnesota than it is the in Carson, California). Each offseason, I put together a weighted home-field advantage (wHFA) formula that takes points scored and allowed over the last five years for each team and gives a diminishing weight the further you go back in time.(While I think other data exist that is better for predicting future performance than points scored and allowed, the benefit of using these numbers is that we're already dealing with the scale we want to use for our final output. Otherwise, we' Tyler Johnson Jersey d have to find a way to calculate a conversion rate for another stat to points scored to help us determine what it all means for our point spreads.) In August of last year, my raw wHFA calculations had the average team at 2.31 points heading into the 2019 season. This year, that number takes a severe dip, because on average there e sentially was no home-field advantage in 2019. The home team won just 51.7% of its games last season, the lowest mark since 1972, per the . Banging the road team proved a fruitful strategy for bettors, as home teams went just 104-137-10 against the spread, per Pro-Football-Reference data.The shocking performance of teams on the road has e sentially cut my overall raw wHFA numbers in half: the average team only had 1.15 points of home-field advantage over the last five years in my weighted formula. That result makes sense; if HFA was non-existent last year, and the most recent year in the weighted formula counts for 50 percent, then you would expect the top-level output (which was 2.31 a year ago) to be reduced by around 50 percent.Now, what does this mean moving forward? We don't treat any of our output as the end-all, be-all of the discu sion around home-field advantage. Our formula tracks how much better each team is at home than on the road, and when it turns out a team has been better away from home (as nine teams are this year), I don't a sign them a negative Braydon Coburn Jersey home-field advantage when I'm building my projected lines every week. But if you think the pandemic will cause home-field advantage to be largely wiped out, it does make some sense to use 2019's extreme results, where home-field advantage was largely wiped out, as indicative of what to expect in 2020. I've taken the middle path; my average home-field calculation heading into the season is 1.75 points, much lower than the 2.4-2.5 range I typically sit around, but higher than the raw data implies.Below, you'll find a table with every team's wHFA from 2015-19, then what I'm estimating that team's home-field advantage will be in 2020. I'll be using these numbers along with my power ratings each week to determine what I believe the lines should be at the beginning of the week. If there's a large discrepancy between my line and the posted line, that's an indicator it's time to make a move.I'll cover some specific cases after the table, but for now, the data:TeamwHFA2020ARI0.081.5ATL-0.091.5BAL-1.52BUF0.291.5CAR1.651.5CHI0.952CIN0.41.5CLE1.461.5DAL3.552.5DEN2.472.5DET-0.71.5GB3.552.5HOU2.332IND4.342.5JAC2.572KC0.512LAC-1.281LAR-2.151LV3.811.5MIA2.282MIN2.662NE0.812NO-1.281.5NYG-1.041NYJ3.231.5PHI2.242PIT4.092.5SEA0.12SF2.682TB-0.841TEN0.151.5WAS-0.4 1The casual betting fan considers home-field advantage worth three points, but you'll note above that I have zero teams getting a three-point advantage or higher at home. I do think playing at home will carry some type of advantage even if there are limited to no fans in the stands. While the home team will lose the crowd edge, they will have the benefit of going about their normal routine in the run up to a game at home, while the road team has to take part in travel, which brings about increased interactions outside of their home routine. As a result, road teams must be vigilant about social distancing, dining interactions, etc. in order to deliver a healthy team to the stadium on gameday. Certain teams with strong leadership should have little i sue doing that, while others run the risk of creating an outbreak in their locker rooms and the lo s of Steve Stamkos Jersey multiple key players before kickoff.Theoretically, there's a scenario where being the home team is actually way more advantageous during the pandemic, but we'll have to wait and see whether that's borne out in practice. For now, my HFA range is between one and 2.5 points.When I , the had proven the most extreme example of a team being better at home than on the road. While no one reached their heights in a year defined by road play, the Colts have emerged as the best wHFA team in football, thanks largely to a ma sive gap in points against at home and on the road in 2019. The year before, it was the Colts offense that scored many more points at home than on the road, and in 2017, the defensive side was leading the charge with an extreme home/road split. If the pattern holds -- not that there's any reason it should -- you should expect great things from and Co. at home in 2020. The Raiders had one of the best wHFAs in the league last year, and they did not disappoint, with the team playing much better at home during its final season in Oakland, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. As a result, they rank in the top three of wHFA in 2020, behind the Colts and the . Of course, that doesn't mean a Ryan Callahan Men Jersey whole lot when the team is abandoning its old home for the glamour and glitz of Las Vegas.But anyone who has been to Vegas knows the city was home to plenty of Raiders fans even befor