NFL Playoff Picks ATS 2024-5: Semi-finals

For the semi-finals aka conference championships, my picks against the spread (ATS) are:

trump owns this town +4.5 over PHILLY

buffalo +1.5 over KC swifties 

I am glad to be 7-2-1 ATS in playoffs so far = 5-1 wild card round + 2-1-1 divisional round = 1-1-1 road underdogs, 3-0 home underdogs and 3-1 home overdogs. I never pick overdogs except in the playoffs when I back teams coming off the bye week or if they rested their starters in the final regular season match. Teams coming off the bye before the divisional round win almost 3/4 of matches straight-up  vs. 2/3 straight-up winners for regular season overdogs.

I kept track of the all-underdogs record for the entire National Football League (NFL) 2024-5 season including playoffs. Underdogs finished 121-147-4 against the spread (ATS) or 45% = 75-90-2 road underdogs and 46-57-2 homie doggies. As a result, I finished dead last in the one ATS season-long pool I swim in.  

Over many decades, NFL home underdogs were the best bet in sports -- but not this year or last. Home underdogs went 9-21 ATS over weeks 5-9. Home underdogs went 47-51-5 in 2023-2024 including playoffs. 

 A simple all-underdogs strategy has recorded 25 winning NFL regular seasons over the past 33 against the spread (ATS), a track record significant to statheads (to borrow one of toy boy Archibald's catch-phrases). 

Underdogs lost the NFL regular season ATS for the 2nd consecutive year. If anyone knows when is the last time that happened, I would be glad to know. And, has there ever been a worse underdog ATS winning % than 45% this year?

Have bettors finally twigged to the fact that they overestimated overdog favorites for years through 2022-23? It's possible. I expect underdogs to win a bit more than 1/3 of all matches straight-up and a bit more than 1/6 of all matches on points. Over the past two years, underdogs have won a bit less than 1/6 of all matches on points and bit less than 1/3  of all matches straight-up. Are the unusual results of the past 2 years just a short-term random walk around the long-term average? Or has the underdog-tilt identified by Stephen Leavitt vanished? We will need a few more seasons to reach a conclusion. In the meantime, I will stick with regular-season underdogs next year. I will not abandon my all-underdogs regular season strategy just because of two consecutive bad years.

I should say that the all-underdog long-term winning % ATS is not high enough to make a living against the small commissions implicity built into odds offered by gambling houses. 

Sports betting is the House of the Rising Sun of the 3rd millenium: "the ruin of many a poor boy". Dare I say that the 19th century House of the Rising Sun was more fun for customers, but not workers.