NFL season-long player props: Valuable bets in the passing markets
Last year, we spent Week 18 cheering against Jared Goff.
Heading into the season with Dak Prescott (+1500) and Tua Tagovailoa (+1800) to lead the NFL in passing yards, Goff was the only quarterback who could jam things up on the season’s final Sunday. He threw for 320 yards, but luckily Tagovailoa only needed 125 in the Sunday night season finale against Buffalo to clinch a net win of 17 units in the passing yardage market alone.
It was an exciting day, because we also cruised home with another quarterback bet: Prescott (+1800) to lead the NFL in touchdowns. At +34 units in one four minute read, this article might have been my Magnum Opus.
This is all to say that last year’s effort won’t be topped, but what fun would it be if we didn’t try?
Passing leader odds
Patrick Mahomes remains the favorite in both categories, but it’s worth noting that his odds were +260 and +225 before last season and now they’re considerably longer. A strong defense, weak competition in the AFC West that tamps down fourth quarter aggression, and the ever-so-slight-slowing of Travis Kelce (just five touchdowns last year) led to 4183 yards and 27 touchdowns in 2023.
Here’s a quote from last year’s article:
”It might be optimistic to hope Tagovailoa plays a full 17 games, but his injury risk is why he's not priced closer to 10-1.”
Well, after leading the league in passing yards, and proving he can stay healthy, Tagovailoa is +1000 for this season, a fair price.
Best bets to lead NFL in passing yards
With 4600 yards enough to lead the league in passing yards, there are plenty of quarterbacks that could hit that number (270.5 yards per game), making this market capable of producing a decent-sized longshot on an annual basis.
Jared Goff (+1000, FanDuel)
Goff played indoors 12 times, and averaged 276.1 yards in those games. When playing outdoors, he averaged 252.2 yds/gm. With 14 of 17 games indoors this season, let’s do some quick math:
14 * 276.1 = 3856.4
3 * 252.2 = 756.6
Projected Total: 4613
4613 yards would follow 4438 in 2022 and 4575 in 2023. If he can increase his production by 3% again - with Amon-Ra St. Brown in his prime, Sam LaPorta in his second season, and another year with Ben Johnson calling plays - Goff could push towards 4800 yards.
At 10-1 odds, we’ll likely spend Week 18 cheering for Goff, in a home game with Minnesota, hopefully with the Packers clipping at their heels, as they battle for the division and the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
Jordan Love (+2000, FanDuel)
Speaking of Green Bay, last year was Jordan Love’s first full season as a starter and unsurprisingly, it took the Packers’ offense some time to flourish. In the first 8 games of the season, Love averaged 218 yards per game, but in the final nine games, he averaged 271. It wasn’t just Love, it was the slow realisation that Green Bay’s young wide receiving corps is a strength versus an uncertainty. If Love can average 271 per game this season, that amounts to 4607 yards.
Geno Smith (+5000, Bet365)
In the long shot department, you could do worse than a quarterback who threw for 4200+ yards two years ago.
More interestingly, Seattle will see a change in approach from Pete Carroll’s ultra-conservative decision making and strategy. With Brian Grubb coming in from the Washington Huskies to manage the offensive play-calling, you’re getting an offensive system that loves to design deep shots to a talented receiving corps. DK Metcalf, Jaxon Smith-Njigba (who showed signs of taking a leap last year), and the now-officially-ageless Tyler Lockett, can mirror the Huskies’ trio of receivers Grubb worked with via Michael Penix. Like any QB, we’ll need Smith to stay healthy, and catch a few breaks with weather late in the season, but the Seahawks should be battling for a playoff spot late.
Best bets to lead the NFL in passing touchdowns
Jordan Love (+1700, FanDuel)
Love is our Dak this year, where you want to be invested in both sides of the passing betting markets. In that 9-game finishing stretch, Love had 20 touchdowns and gave our Prescott tickets a scare. Green Bay let Aaron Jones go, which suggests that they’re looking for better pass protection out of the running back position, in order to take advantage of having no singular pass-catcher for defenses to focus on, particularly in the red zone.
C.J. Stroud (+1200, Bet365)
Bet365 has Stroud at 12-1 to lead the league in passing touchdowns. Compare that to his +700 odds (via FanDuel) to lead the league in yardage, that’s the biggest discrepancy between markets for any quarterback outside of Tua Tagovailoa. Mike McDaniel preferred to run the ball into the end zone last year, with a 30:27 pass TD-to-rush TD ratio, so Tua’s odds differential makes sense. Last year, Bobby Slowik (a member of the same 49ers’ coaching tree), had his offense throw 26 touchdowns compared to 10 rushing touchdowns. If the Texans’ offense ends up as scary as everyone seems to think - with a Stefon Diggs drawing defensive attention away from Tank Dell, and Nico Collins, along with Dalton Schultz - it’s going to be through the air.
Best bets to lead the NFL in interceptions
Sam Howell played in 17 games last year, and threw 21 interceptions, a strong example that a rookie is always a good bet in this market if you know he’s playing all 17 games (barring injury). Which, of course, is why Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels are the co-favorites in this market with Josh Allen, who was the interception leader in the non-Howell category.
Brock Purdy (+3500)
Good quarterbacks lead the NFL in interceptions all the time. Allen almost did last year, Prescott the season before, Matthew Stafford and (rookie) Trevor Lawrence in 2021. Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers, and Drew Brees did as well, in the last decade or so.
Essentially, you have to have 17 games worth of opportunity to throw interceptions and the willingness (dare I say, “hubris”) to throw balls into tight windows with the utmost faith that your receivers will come down with it. There are turnover-worthy throw metrics that suggest Purdy’s gotten more than a little lucky in his young career by seeing those throws fall harmlessly to the ground. A big interception season could be coming, even if the 49ers still have team success.
Dak Prescott (+3500)
In 2022, all it took to lead the NFL in interceptions was 15, and Prescott needed only 12 games to “accomplish” this feat. Prescott threw 590 passes last year, and with even less regard for the running back position and a tougher schedule, that number’s going up. Dak only threw nine interceptions - 1.5% of his throws - in the regular season, but his turnover tendency crept up late, and he threw two picks in their playoff loss.
From 2017 to 2022, Prescott’s interception rate was 2.1%. Repeating that rate this season, on 600 attempts, would translate to 13 interceptions. If he’s even a little unlucky, and the Cowboys up their passing rate further - due to more competitive fourth quarters - he could regress to where he was in 2022, but with a full season’s work.