24 Exploitable Preseason Player Prop Bets

Photo: Kim Klement, USA Today Sports

It's early May, but DraftKings sportsbook has already released preseason player prop bets. The downside of these bets is your money will be locked up until the season completes, but the upside is some of these lines are extremely soft.

Link to DraftKings Player Props

To find value, I compared the DraftKings line to projections done by Bob Henry, Jason Wood, and myself. I know I personally have 70+ hours into my early projections and suspect both Jason and Bob have a similar commitment as we have been through multiple iterations already. I only looked at -110 bets (which was the majority of bets).

I looked for situations where all three of us agree on the bet and our consensus projection is at least 4+% better than the line. The table at the end of this article outlines all of the bets that satisfy these criteria (sorted by percentage).

Best Bets

• Rookie WR Jalen Reagor, PHI - UNDER 750.5 receiving yards
• Rookie WR Justin Jefferson, MIN - UNDER 775.5 receiving yards
• Rookie WR Henry Ruggs, OAK - UNDER 800.5 receiving yards

I am grouping these three bets together because they are rookies that have prop lines signaling the expectation that these players will be integral parts of their offenses out of the gate. And although that COULD happen, I think these things are working against that outcome.

• COVID-19 will limit practice time for these rookies with their new teams. Rookie camps may not even happen. August training camps could be shortened.
  
  
• Only 39 wide receivers achieved 750 receiving yards last season. Only 35 receivers topped 800 yards. The two rookie wide receivers drafted in the first round of 2019 (Marquise Brown and NKeal Harry) both failed to achieve these levels.
  
  
• NFL playbooks are hard to learn. There is a reason fantasy players look to a wide receiver's third season as the likely year that player will breakout. Although each of these players is EXPECTED to be the starter by season's end, they will need to earn that spot by handling getting jammed on the line of scrimmage and running a lot of routes with multiple options based on how they are being defended.

Of the other bets in the table, I prefer betting UNDERs because many factors could derail a player's season. Namely getting hurt, benched, concussed, or even getting COVID-19 which could force a player to miss two games.

Best of luck with your bets this season.

All of the Bets That Fit the Criteria