With the pointspreads settling in this weekend to New England -14 over San Diego and Green Bay -7 over the New York Giants, let’s take a look at some pointspread history in this round of the playoffs. We’ll look back to the 1990 season, when the current 12-team playoff format was adopted. All numbers are against the pointspread unless otherwise noted.

• Favorites are 19-15 against the spread in the conference championship games.
• From 1990 through 1997 favorites were 11-5.
• Underdogs then dominated from 1998-2003 as favorites went 3-9 to the pointspread.
• The last three seasons favorites have notched a 5-1 mark against the spread, though they were all small favorites of 5.5 or less.

This is the first time since 2001 that both conference championship favorites are favored by a touchdown or more.

• Favorites of 7 or more have gone 8-9 against the spread since 1990.
• Of the 9 underdogs of 7-points or more that covered pointspreads, 4 of them have won outright, with 3 of those 4 wins being by franchises playing this weekend. The 2001 Patriots won as a 10.5-point underdog in Pittsburgh. The 1998 Falcons won as a 10.5-point underdog in Minnesota. The 1994 Chargers won as a 9.5-point dog in Pittsburgh. And the 1990 Giants won while getting 8 points in San Francisco.
• The heaviest favorites have fared poorly. Favorites of 10-points or more are a poor 2-6 against the spread in the championship games.
• So teams favored between 7 and 9.5 are actually a profitable 6-3 to the pointspread.
• In 8 of the 17 years of the 12-team playoff format there have been favorites of 7 or more in both of the respective championship games. Only once did they both cover, ironically that was when Green Bay and New England both covered as big favorites on their way to meeting each other in the Super Bowl following the 1996 season.
• New England is favored by 14 points. During the time of this study, the only time that a team has been favored by 14 or more they failed to cover, as the 1999 Rams struggled to an ugly 11-6 win over the Bucs despite being favored by 14.5 points.

Remember that all this historical information is interesting, the games this weekend should be analyzed as the unique events that they are.