Fade the hype of the league leaders and find outperforming mid-range teams
Week 5 betting on the NFL is tailor-made for people who like to bet against a hype machine that keeps getting louder.
It takes cojones to bet against a team that’s 4-0 or even 3-1.
Not only are your buddies all talking about the dominant teams, so are the media mouthpieces. They’re picking out the Super Bowl parade routes before the leaves have even changed color.
Week 5 is where you have to ignore the hype and double down on finding value.
And that value comes from teams with talent but mid-range or losing records so far.
Check out the latest odds at Lucky Rebel
5–0 Doesn’t Mean a Profitable Lock
At this point it’s likely that even a 4-0 team or a team that might hit 5-0 in NFL Week 5 is a really good football team.
But here’s where going against the herd can pay off.
We know that in Week 5, the league is catching up. Fast. Fewer and fewer teams make it 5-0, 6-0, and so on every week.
For all NFL teams, game tapes are being studied by coaching staffs with a dozen analytics nerds and real coaches at every position.
This makes NFL Week 5 a prime time to look at 1-3 teams or 2-2 teams that have done well against the spread.
They are primed for a breakout after a couple of close games. Late FG misses, bad calls, bad bounces… any of these could take a team that in reality could be 3-1, but they’re sitting at 1-3.
Overvaluation in the Market
This week is where any casual money that’s been super cautious finally decides to get in on the action.
I don’t know exactly what it is, but they’ve probably been overcautious because they haven’t done the real work – they’re only reading the headlines.
So as we get closer to kickoff, that’s when the public bets move in more. By that time, overvaluation has reached its peak. Lines have been pushed to feed the people what they want.
It makes sense to me, if I’m just looking at human nature.
If you’re a casual player, and you’re hearing from Monday to Sunday how great Joe Burrow is playing, or how awesome the Eagles’ defense is, you’re already primed to make a bet leaning their way.
Overvaluation is the definition of Week 5, and if you bite into it, you’re buying too high.
Sharps vs. Squares in Week 5
Casual bettors, are still operating mainly from headlines, gut feeling, and emotions.
And by Week 5, all that noise is in overdrive with the few remaining top teams left in the NFL.
Squares also don’t pay much attention to line movement. They’ll bet with their gut and some surface knowledge of which teams are hot, but they won’t hedge or increase their bets if the line moves by a point or two.
Sharps, on the other hand, always look for the signal over the noise. We’re more likely to bet the other way when greed is high, like Warren Buffet buys stocks.That line moving by a point or two by mid-week? That’s a sign that the books are feeding the hype, if it’s a line that’s increasing in favor of the favorite.
Or if it’s tightened up, it shows that the books are trying to shade the line to offset too much cash going to one side. All the more reason to look at those mid-range teams with a higher range of talent.
Check the Early Lines
Some of the same stuff talked about in the Week 4 betting hype also applies to Week 5.
Teams are gearing up to take down the top teams. What might have surprised their opponents in the early weeks isn’t a surprise anymore. Cat’s out of the bag.
Plus, there’s that regression thing again. At some point, every team loses, or at least doesn’t cover or dominate like they’ve been doing.
Week 5 is where you should look for inflated spreads. There’s value in seeing a team that the books have hyped up to 7.5, and can pick the underdog to stay within a TD. Especially an underdog that has covered or played well in the first quarter of the season.
We’re all looking especially close at the early lines, fresh off the favorite’s latest win. And if the lines don’t tighten up much – or even get inflated more – during the week, it might be a good idea to even go bigger on the underdog.
Spotting Value in the Fade
Last season the Arizona Cardinals finished 8-9, including a 1-3 start in their first 4 games. And that includes being blindsided in Week 4 by the Jayden Daniels machine, which no one in the entire league saw coming.
But the Cards ended up with one of the best ATS records in the NFL, at 11-6. That means 65% of the time, they covered. But how many people faded them for Week 5 betting based on the W-L record alone?
On the flip side? The Seahawks, taking a 3-1 record into Week 5. They finished 10-7 and just missed a playoff spot. But the ‘Hawks were one of the worst teams in the league ATS when the final game ended, at just 6-10-1.
There’s value in both those scenarios.
Don’t Bet Records—Bet Reality
It’s not about who wins the most consecutive games. It’s about betting value hiding under the radar.
It seems that reality hits a lot of teams in Week 5. Life comes at you fast.
Bettors are also into giving some other contenders the spotlight, or at least looking under the hood to see if there’s value in their lukewarm record through the first 4 weeks.