I successfully picked underdog kc +1 over philly in Super Bowl LVII.
I finished 7-6 against the spread (ATS) with my 2023 playoff picks: 4-4 road underdogs, 1-1 home underdogs, 1-1 home overdogs and 1-0 in the Super Bowl.
The divisional round is the only time I ever pick overdog favourites based on TMQ Gregg Easterbrook's insight that the top seeds coming off a bye win 3/4 of their divisional round games straight-up. My guess is that the point spreads may not completely capture top seed dominance.
For the 2022-3 National Football League (NFL) regular season, underdogs finished 140-121-9 or 53.5% ATS.
55-44-4 home underdogs -- historically the best bet in sports, but not good enough over the long run to make a profit large enough to overcome the commission charged by gambling houses.
85-77-5 road underdogs.
Toy boy Archibald has retired his NFL ATS pool due to volunteer work taking up all his time even to the point of neglecting me.
With Arch barely in my life, (and even more barely barely, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink) I joined another pool and picked all underdogs all year long. A simple all-underdogs strategy has now recorded 25 winning regular seasons over the past 31, a track record significant to statheads (to borrow one of Arch's catch-phrases). I finished 3rd out of 65 players in the pool.
This strategy is based on the persuasive case from Professor Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame that NFL bettors would do better if they realized that underdogs consistently best overdogs ATS and that the Super Bowl underdog is the best bet of the year.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/magazine/dissecting-the-line.html
