Good observation. I think it's a little of both. California teams are often over-bought in Vegas. But in the NFL over the last several years, there has been a growing gap between the good, the blob in the middle, and the bad teams. Recently, there have been more teams at the bottom of the league that are very uncompetitive and the lines have not reacted fast enough to reflect how bad these teams are. For all the talk of parity at the top and in the middle of the NFL, there have been teams every year recently that have been very very bad. (Not the same teams every year though)
A few years ago, favorites covered at a very high rate and big favorites covered at a high rate also. Double digit favorites and especially double digit road favorites have historically been rare in the NFL. However, in the last 3-5 years, my sense is (I have not done the analysis) the number of teams winning by double digits has been unusually high when viewed in a long-term context. I just went back and looked at my power ratings from last year. The top four teams in the league would all have been double digit neutral field favorites over the bottom four. And a few other teams would have been double digit neutral favorites over the worst two. Oakland and SF have both been in that bottom four category a few years in the last ten. And the lines haven't been boosted enough during some seasons to reflect that they were under-performing the line.
I love ugly, real ugly dogs because historically they have been under-valued by bettors. Two years ago was an absolute nightmare for dog bettors, though last year was much better. Lines were adjusted faster last year to reflect how bad the worst teams were. LInesmakers have learned from this and adjusted much quicker last year. If they continue to do that this year, then I expect ugly dogs to become even more profitable. The trend of big dogs not covering is not a trend I would hang my hat on anyway. (But then I'm an ugly dog bettor so my bias is clearly in that direction anyway).
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I was just wondering whether there was any thought that the California proximity was creating a can't lose situation over the long term, like betting against the local team with the local bookie. I found it funny that the two worst teams ATS were the two closest to Vegas and thought maybe the closeness was playing a role.