4for4 Betting Recap: Week 3
Welcome to the 4for4 football gambling recap! My name is Dan Rivera and I am in charge of tracking bets from Connor Allen, Ryan Noonan, Sam Hoppen and Greg Smith. Each week, I track these four and provide feedback after the Monday Night Football game ends. If you have not found it, I track them all here in this 4for4 Tracker. Make sure you switch to the right person and sport.
When you look at anyone in the 2021 NFL, you will see some yellow blocks that recap. There are two points you need to know:
- You will see a weekly tracker; this just lets you look at anyone on any given week. This is what I like to call the micro tracker.
- The big yellow box has most of the plays broken down by position, prop type, totals, spreads, etc. The total units won or lose will differ from this deep dive version because certain plays didn’t fit into the deep dive. For example, Ryan Noonan bet the Patriots to make the playoffs. It doesn’t fit into any of the weekly bets during the NFL season.
Why do I do this? When tracking NFL bets, 99% of all bets anyone makes are working juice (meaning you have to lay more money down than you would win). This tracker is far superior compared to other trackers. Other trackers don’t have bets broken down by type, it is just simply a tracker. To me, that isn’t helpful. I want the data (picks) to tell a story so I can help whoever is making the picks win more. With the juice, you are better off avoiding losers than you are winning. My goal is to help anyone I track to avoid losers or have them attack areas they are having success. When you look at the deep dive table, be careful if one area looks good or bad. Sample size is key to that deep dive table and a small sample can get very skewed in one direction.
Ninety-nine percent of all plays tracked are to win 1 unit or 0.5 units. You will get maybe one, max two plays from anyone bet to win more than 1 unit.
With that being said, let's look at week 3!
Ryan Noonan
Week 3: 10-12, 45.45%, -3.32 units
YTD: 36-31, 53.73%, 0.16 units
Ryan’s Analysis: The lookaheads were huge! I finished with significant value closing line value (CLV) in four spots, going 3-1 on those games. Some plays were correlated this week, Bucs -1 and Brady over 2.5 passing touchdowns. The same can be said for Patriots -1 and Damien Harris over 60.5 rush yards. These didn’t cash and hurt the bottom line for Week 3.
A few tough beats on bets I'd make again—those losses were due to injury (Christian McCaffrey) or just couldn’t get the job done (J.D. McKissic over 19.5 receiving yards, Michael Carter over 7.5 receiving yards, Allen Robinson over 4.5 receptions). I need to incorporate more unders going forward because there are built-in outs that aren’t baked into the price.
Dan’s Analysis: Ryan has been great at WR props and team totals. He is currently 13-5 on WR props (72.22%) and 7-1 on team totals (87.5%). Be careful of sample size, remember. Ryan has struggled on RB props, going 7-13 (35%) but one area in particular has destroyed him—RB receiving yards! He is 2-8 on RB receiving yards. If you take out those, he is 5-5 overall in RB props and is up a very small amount on RB props (0.02 units).
Connor Allen
Week 3: 6-10, 37.5%, -4.71 units
YTD: 30-36, 45.45%, -10.95 units
Connor’s Analysis: I should have known about the Saints feeding their best player after last week’s performance. This is my worst start in the last three years.
Dan’s Analysis: Connor is getting hit hard with negative variance. He can’t catch a break on his plays that are costing him. A few examples:
- Tony Pollard over 12.5 receiving yards in Week 3. It closed close to 22.5 yards. Pollard recorded one catch all game after looking great the first two weeks in the receiving game.
- Sony Michel under 57.5 yards in Week 3. The Rams were in a very positive game script and he was the only good back who wasn’t hurt and Tampa Bay's defense looked dreadful when the game became out of reach.
- Jonathan Taylor receptions/receiving yards in Week 2. He was only one catch off after coming off a Week 1 performance where he had six catches. The Colts didn’t want to use him in the passing game.
I feel confident Connor will bounce back over the month of October. He has had quite a few plays not go his way that cost him. I only highlighted a few examples above—there are a lot more in that tracker. Why say all this? When you gamble long enough, everyone suffers negative variance and goes cold. The thing to do is keep grinding out and understand why you are losing. We all suffer from cold streaks. Does it make you bad at gambling? No. It's just negative variance going against you. One of the biggest red flags in gambling is when people tell you they have never had a losing week. I've never met anyone who is an honest gambler who never had a losing week.
Sam Hoppen
Week 3: 1-5, 16.67%, -4.1 units
YTD: 7-8, 46.67%, -1.8 units
Dan’s Analysis: Sam is tough to give a deep dive on because of small sample size. He is currently 4-1 on QB plays for 3.4 units, but 1-3 on RB plays for -2.2 units.
Greg Smith
Week 3: 2-6, 25%, -4.14 units
YTD: 13-16, 44.83%, -5.69 units
Dan’s Analysis: Greg is working in some of the most efficient gambling markets out there. What I mean by that is a half-point to a full point is the difference between having a winning weekend versus a losing weekend. With totals, you will see 1- or 2-point swings but both of these markets are by far the hardest to win in the long term. Greg had such bad beats on Raiders -3.5 and under 45.5. If the Raiders do their job and don’t allow Dolphins to score in the end, he goes 4-4 instead of 2-6. That series had a net swing of 4.2 units that cost him 2.2 units.
