NFL wild card round play-off picks: Have underdogs found their mojo?

I am sticking with all-underdogs including the 3 home dogs: BLITZBURGH +6.5, JAXONVILLE +1 and CAROLINA +10. 

I kept track of the all-underdogs record for the National Football League (NFL) 2025 regular season. 

Against the spread (ATS), underdogs finished 139-131-2 or 51.47% = 77-76-2 road underdogs + 62-55 home underdogs. 

For 3 decades through the 2022 regular season, home NFL underdogs were the best bets in sports -- not every year, but most years. 

And, there was also a slight tilt toward road underdogs winning a touch more than 50% ATS. 

As a result, a simple all-underdogs strategy recorded 25 winning NFL regular seasons out of 31 through 2022. 

However, underdogs lost the previous 2 NFL regular seasons 2023-4 and 2024-5 and were losing again earlier in 2025 until underdogs resumed their top-dog status. 

So, underdogs have now won 26 of the past 34 regular seasons through 2025-26.

In 2025-26, overdog favorites had a 63% winning record before taking the spread into account -- down from 71% the year prior. 15% of 2025-26 matches were reversed on points against the spread (ATS). Both were below long-term trends. 

15.3% of 2023-24 and 2024-25 matches were decided on points. So, 2025-26 was the 3rd straight year the number of matches decided on points was below what might expect. That is consistent with the theory that the long-time misperception may no longer be there in the betting market that overdog favorites will win by larger margins than turn out to be the case. 

After last season, I wondered if it could be the case that NFL underdogs no longer rule. Had bettors finally twigged to the fact that they overestimated overdog favorites for years through 2022? It's possible. Underdogs only won 2025-26 by winning a higher-than-expected % of matches outright.

Based on what seemed like regularities in place up until 2022-23, 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. 

Are the unusual results of the past 3 seasons just short-term random walks around long-term averages? Or has the underdog-tilt identified by Professor Steven Levitt vanished? We will need a few more seasons to reach a conclusion. 

In the meantime, I stuck with regular-season underdogs in 2025-26 in the just-for-fun pool that Godiva boy toy Archibald introduced me to. Because most pool players back overdog favorites, I finished 1st out of 54 players in Archibald's pool. 

I should say that the all-underdog long-term winning % ATS was 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.