Welcome to Upset Watch, our weekly column that dissects the chances of each underdog with methodical attention to detail. With no preconceived ideas, we find the underdogs who will win when everyone else has written them off.
Last week was no exception to the rule. Although we picked 3 underdog winners, we hit on the two biggest of the week - Cincinnati and San Francisco, while narrowly losing in our other two picks, Tampa Bay and Buffalo in... well, let's just say 'dramatic' fashion.
Thanks to the higher odds of our picks, we've added a further $200+ in profit if you bet $100 on all of our picks, taking our season total even higher. Let's see whether either of this week's conference championship games might prove worthy of an underdog pick...
Season Results
Season singles Profit: +$3,595 ($100 on each money line pick)
Season doubles profit: ($10 on every parlay of 2 from our money line picks): +$1,570
Season trebles profit: ($10 on every parlay of 3 from our money line picks): +$1,825
Total profit of all 2x and 3x parlays: +$3,395
Well it was exciting, nobody can deny that.
One thing I like about the playoffs is that the pressure is kind of off to put huge parlays on, or to try and work on a basis of 5 or 6 underdog winners. In the playoffs, it'd be wild to have that many picks, if there were even that many games! That means a solid 2/3 performance in the Divisional round was another big boost, adding $225 in winnings.
Last week I noted that there was a reasonable case that all of the underdogs had a pretty good shot and that we should ignore previous years' omens that suggested few underdogs would win, and it turned out that we were 13 seconds away from that being true!
Had the Bills managed to hold on instead of giving up the most improbable of Field Goals, that's where we'd be, with 3 underdog wins out of 3.
A quick note - I'll be going back and removing any Pro restrictions on old Upset Watch articles, so that those who don't know what we do here can get a flavor for the level of detail I go into. Those who know, know, but it'd be easy to pin this as 'just another column' if you've never seen it before.
Development Update
This week we added the new 'Consensus' View to tables on the site. This condenses the information on our expert picks page down into just the simple information for each game: The odds (and the spread in ATS), the expert pick % for each team, the fan pick % for each team, and the Pro Pick for Pro users.
You can access this by clicking the 'Consensus' tab above the table (highlighted blue below)
We're primarily doing this to simplify the site for those who are in a hurry and just want a quick overview of the week's games. Although there are lots of users who engage with the granular data we provide, ultimately, some people just want to see the the high level data, and this will make it easier than ever.
Want to know what's next here at Pickwatch? Check out January's developer blog!
Want the other Picks?
Sign up for a monthly plan this week and get full pro access, including Upset Watch, best experts by team, custom date range expert data, and Pro picks for all of the Conference Championship and Super Bowl for just $5!
Promo Code: PLAYOFF
