Analyst · 9-5-1 on settled picks
“I'm taking the unders on christian mccaffrey uh 12 40 uh 1249 nine and a half rushing yards and nine and a half rushing touchdowns are the lines over at Caesars. I like the under on both of these guys and by a decent margin, actually.”
NFL.com lists Christian McCaffrey with 225 rushing yards; the stored outcome matches. (Christian McCaffrey 225 rushing yards)
“I'm taking the unders on christian mccaffrey uh 12 40 uh 1249 nine and a half rushing yards and nine and a half rushing touchdowns are the lines over at Caesars.”
NFL.com lists Christian McCaffrey with 5 rushing touchdowns; the stored outcome matches. (Christian McCaffrey 5 rushing touchdowns)
“Yeah, I'm going to go with an over. This is my only over on the list here, my only chance to play the optimist role here. I'm going to go with Travis Kelsey over 7.5 total touchdowns. I think it an overreaction the line to what happened last season”
NFL.com lists Travis Kelce with 11 receiving touchdowns; the stored outcome matches. (Travis Kelce 11 receiving touchdowns)
“the board is good old Baker Mayfield. This one is surprising to me because my projection is about 400 yards off from his passing yardage line, which is 3,849 and a half yards this season. So here's the thing. Last season, he played pretty much every snap for this Browns offense. He ranked 10th in pass attempts in the NFL, and he was below this line, 38-27. That was his passing yardage total. So you bring in Kevin Stefanski, all indicators are this will be a run-heavy offense, just like Minnesota was. They were one of the run-heaviest offenses in the NFL. What did he do when he got to Cleveland? Did he go get a third receiver? No. You know, what he did was he brought in a tight end and he brought in a fullback and he, you know, they didn't really even address that third wide receiver spot. So they addressed the offensive line, of course. So I think they're going to run the football a ton. And what did we see from Kirk Cousins last season? Well, he was extremely efficient. You know, I think all indicators suggest he was one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the NFL, but he was 24th in pass attempts and he barely cleared. 3,600 passing yards. Again, that's well below this line of 38, 49 and a half. And by the way, we can't count on him playing every snap again, right? 99% of the dropbacks. I mean, if you look on a given year, how many of the 32 week one quarterbacks play 95% of the dropbacks? Well, it's about a third of them. I mean, they get hurt and guys get benched. And he, by the way, could get benched. Case Keenum is there. And if he struggles again and Cleveland's kind of hanging in the race for that seventh wild card, he very well could lose the job if he's really having a hard time. So for me, I'm at 34-54, 400 yards below this mark, an easy under for me. I love that one.”
NFL.com lists Baker Mayfield with 3,563 passing yards; the stored outcome matches. (Baker Mayfield 3,563 passing yards)
“Number two. Okay, we're going to go back to the under well here. And this is tough because I've been a little bit of a DeAndre Hopkins apologist, if you will, based on some of the football Twitter pushback, if you will, and on his projections and his fantasy appeal for this season. I think he'll be fine. And, you know, I do think that his target share will come down a little bit from Houston. But he still, I think, will get enough volume to be a top fantasy receiver. That being said, his touchdown reception line is eight and a half right now at Caesars. I think that is too high.”
NFL.com lists DeAndre Hopkins with 6 receiving touchdowns; the stored outcome matches. (DeAndre Hopkins 6 receiving touchdowns)
“Now, again, it's a little bit different because he was going 40 to one for Cooper Cup to lead the NFL in touchdowns. That's obviously more appealing than taking over seven and a half receiving touchdowns, which is what his line is at Caesars. I'm way on the under on this one, even at minus $1.20.”
NFL.com lists Cooper Kupp with 3 receiving touchdowns; the stored outcome matches. (Cooper Kupp 3 receiving touchdowns)
“I'm going to go to the defensive side of the ball, believe it or not. There's not a ton of those on the board, but I'm going to start with a rookie edge rusher, Josh Allen in Jacksonville. The line here, six and a half sacks at minus 110. I'm going under on this one.”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.
“I'm liking the over on the total touchdowns for Devonta Freeman. And listen, I get he's a running back, and he missed a lot of time last year, and we know about the injury rate at this position. So this one makes me nervous for sure. But the line's 8.5, and I'm projecting him for closer to 11.”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.
“I love this one a lot. Again, we're going to go with the over on the combination of sacks for Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa, the line 16 and a half. And I have these two guys closer to 20 and a half.”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.
“Zeke over Barkley. So we're on the same page. All right, Mike, number five, you have Leighton Vander Esch. What are your thoughts on him? Yeah, this one, I'm not even joking. I like check the Caesars because I wasn't sure if they accidentally meant like solo tackles or something because I was kind of blown away by this line. So it's 123 and a half combined tackles for Van Der Esch. Here's the thing. He had 140 tackles last year, and he was playing 78% of the defensive snaps. I mean, there were times where he was off the field because Sean Lee was healthy. And, you know, we saw kind of a changing of the guard in the playoffs, right? So Van Der Esch played 105 snaps, only 24 for Lee. Lee is back, but he's expected to be the three. Van Der Esch was just too good to keep off the field. So we should expect him and Jalen Smith to be the primary guys. I do think his snaps will be higher this year and he's going to have a terrific opportunity for tackles. And by the way, if you're wondering if maybe that number was a fluke and, you know, it's not maybe a terribly hard number to get to. Well, you know, I look back at league history. This isn't just linebackers or edge rusher. I mean, it's safeties. It's all defensive players that have been drafted in NFL history. Well, Van Resch sits 11th on that list for tackles as a rookie. And just for, you know, to kind of really drive this home, I'm going to list you the other players on this list. The guys ahead of him. Patrick Willis, Luke Kuechly, Darius Leonard, Kiko Alonzo, D'Amico Ryan, Zach Thomas, Chris Spielman, CJ Mosley, Terrell Freeman, and Dwayne Bickett. I mean, talk about a list of linebackers right there. Van Der Esch now 11 on that list. I think this guy is the real deal. You know, at 123 and a half combined tackles, again, already had 140 last year. I think he will clear this number with ease barring disaster.”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.
“DraftKings.com for details. All right, Mike, we are in the top five. I love this next prop that you have coming at us. Josh Jacobs, what are your thoughts with him at number five? Yeah, I'm in on Josh Jacobs. I mean, you just look back at first round running backs and their success in this league over the past decade, and it's kind of crazy. It's really hard to believe. In fact, if you look at the 11 running backs selected in the first round from 2012 to 2018, So the most recent 11 prior to Josh Jacobs, the average rushing yardage total, the average for those 11 was 933.8 yards. That in itself is above this 907.5 line.”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.
“You can get the over on the rushing touchdowns for Chris Carson. The line here is seven. I have him at nine rushing touchdowns.”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.
“with you there Yeah this is one of my favorites Probably not a surprise Mike who do you have at number three Yeah I think I might be a little stubborn on this one because the line keeps going up as much as I keep hammering this one home Every time I talk about it in an article or online it like the line moves a half touchdown but it Philip Rivers passing touchdowns. The line right now is 28 and a half. I have him at 30 touchdowns, so I'm not too far off. But again, that line keeps getting closer and closer to me. But here's the thing. He should be a near lock to get to this mark. He's actually reached 28 passing touchdowns, nine of the past 11 seasons. He's gotten there each of the past six. He had 32 last year. And if you look deeper at this offense, there's really two things that stand out to me. 78% of the Chargers offensive touchdowns have been passes over the past seven seasons. That is the highest mark in the NFL. And it's not even close. I believe the second closest team is at 72%. It's just a feature, I think is the word I'm looking for. Of this Chargers offense, when Philip Rivers has been there, is that they just score a lot of their touchdowns through the air. So you'll like that. And the other one, guys, is he hasn't missed a game since week one of the 2016 season. Like ever since he replaced Drew Brees, he has played in every game. That's incredible. So you talked about it before, Sean. You don't really have to worry here about injury. It just hasn't been a problem for him, and it should be very back of your mind. It's just not really a major concern. So I think there's a lot of reasons to jump on the over here.”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.
“Mike, we are now at number two. Who is it that you were looking at for this one? Yeah, I'm going to go with Alvin Kamara here. The line is 1,699.5 rushing plus receiving yards here. So essentially 1,700 scrimmage yards. And I'm going with the under on this one to be clear.”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.
“All right, Mike, number one, your favorite 2019 season long prompt. Who is it? Well, you guys may not have heard about this guy. I don't know. He's a new up and comer. He hasn't achieved much in the in the NFL so far. So his name is Thomas Brady. He was a quarterback in Michigan. I don't know if you guys know him, but I think he might go over his passing yards, line, his passing yardage line this year. Right now it's actually dropping for some reason, but it's at 4139.5. That's the passing yardage line. My projection right now, especially, and by the way, my line did go up. My projection went up after Josh Gordon was reinstated. It's now at 4423. So we're talking almost 300 yards higher than this line. And the line did not move when Josh Gordon was activated. So I think you can jump on this one. It's even better now than it was”
Independent source result confirms the stored outcome.