4for4 Betting Recap: Week 5
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. 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 lost 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. The 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 any one bet to win more than 1 unit.
With that being said, let's look at Week 5!
Ryan Noonan
Week 5: 13-9, 59.09%, 6.13 units
YTD: 62-51, 54.87%, 8.61 units
Ryan’s Analysis: Team totals! I’m going to continue to focus on team totals because they’re inefficient. A few books in particular just move them with the spread and total while others consider key numbers more. Finding lines on the right of a key number will continue to be my focus.
Dan’s Analysis: Ryan had a major sweat during the Ravens and Patriots game. He had a 3-unit money line parlay of Bucs + Cowboys + Ravens + Patriots at +147 odds. He was lucky on both of those games and he wouldn’t hide it. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good in sports gambling, and Ryan had luck go his way this week.
In terms of the deep dive, Ryan moves to 22-10 on WR props, up 10.21 units. The RB props are skewed downward because of the bad start to RB receiving yards going 3-9 the first five weeks. Ryan does move to an astounding 10-1 on team totals, up 8.9 units in that category!
Connor Allen
Week 5: 9-6, 60%, 5.85 units
YTD: 49-49, 50%, -3.4 units
Connor’s Analysis: Usage sample size is starting to become a lot more stable.
Dan’s Analysis: Connor had a fantastic week! He hit a +900 play on Trey Lance most rushing yards for QB on Sunday, meaning Monday Night Football wasn’t in play. He only had one bad beat this week, Sony Michel under 6.5 rush attempts. This play went down when Darrell Henderson got hurt late in the first half, something you can’t predict. To make it worse, Sony Michel didn’t touch the ball again until late in the fourth quarter versus the Seahawks. I am glad to see Connor bounce back strongly in October so far.
Connor has done well in two prop categories: WRs and QBs. He is 21-11 on WR props for 7.99 units. On QB props, he is 10-4 for 9.56 units. Meanwhile, RB props are skewed downward because of the bad start to RB receiving yards, going 1-8 over the first five weeks. The RB category will take almost the rest of the year to offset the bad start to it.
Sam Hoppen
Week 5: 2-1, 66.67%, 0.9 units
YTD: 12-11, 52.17%, 0.0 units
Sam’s Analysis: I should have made Latavius Murray under 12.5 rush attempts an official play; I was very close to making that a play.
Process over results. We’ve struggled a bit to start this season, but this week I finally got the results to match and it paid off for sure. We know we’re smarter than the books with respect to props and in the long run, that’ll pay off.
Dan’s Analysis: I am going to sound like a broken record on Sam for the next few weeks, but he is tough to give a deep dive on because of the small sample size. I don’t encourage him, or anyone, to be betting large volume if that isn’t your thing just because you want some results. That spells long-term disaster and I expect Sam to slowly grind it out.
Sam is wise in the sense that gambling is all about the long game. It is easy to see results and think someone is good or bad but that isn’t sustainable. You need to be able to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. That is why I track and write for 4for4. I am forcing these handicappers to be honest with themselves, like a gatekeeper. If someone is bragging about short-term, good results and you rarely (if at all) see their down weeks, that is a huge red flag. Buyer beware of these people. None of these handicappers I track hide from the bad days and they take their victory lap when they have good days (as they should).
Greg Smith
Week 5: 5-7, 41.67%, -2.22 units
YTD: 24-26, 48%, -4.25 units
Dan’s Analysis: Another guy I will sound like a broken record on, Greg is working in some of the most efficient gambling markets out there. What I mean is that 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. For example, in Week 3, 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.
I don’t have many takeaways for Greg this week. He just had a down week, it comes with the territory Greg works in.
