If something us taught the divisional round, is that casino trends are not infallible. In the second phase of the postseason, only one of the favorites (Kansas City) qualified for the championship games and on the eve of the Super Bowl the trend does not predict safe results.
Since the 2002 campaign they have played 38 conference finals and 12 games the balance has tipped towards the underdog by the bookmakers. The win rate for los ‘underdogs’ it is 31.5%; that is, almost a third of the commitments.
These are the meetings that have been won by the ‘underdog’:
The ‘underdogs’ of the championship games
| Bell | AFC | NFC |
| 2002 | Buccaneers | |
| 2003 | Panthers | |
| 2005 | Steelers | |
| 2007 | Giants | |
| 2008 | Cardinals | |
| 2011 | Giants | |
| 2012 | Ravens | |
| 2015 | Broncos | |
| 2017 | Eagles | |
| 2018 | Patriots | Rams |
| 2020 | Buccaneers |
The NFC, fertile territory for surprises
One of the patterns to highlight is that of those 12 winning matches by the underprivileged, eight have been from the National Conference.
More importantly, of those eight clubs, Giants and Buccaneers have repeated and on those occasions have been consecrated as champions of the league. New York beat the Patriots in 2007 and 2011; while Tampa Bay did it in 2003 and 2020.
Another noteworthy fact is that only the Eagles and Patriots have gone through the embarrassment of being underdogs multiple times. In the case of Philadelphia, they were surpassed by the Buccaneers and Panthers in consecutive years (2002, 2003) and by New England they experienced it in 2012 (Ravens) and 2015 (Broncos).
