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          NFL betting: Under-the-radar props to bet in Week 7

          How many receiving yards will Jaylen Waddle have this week for the Miami Dolphins? Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire
          • Seth WalderOct 17, 2024, 06:00 PM ET
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              Seth Walder is an analytics writer at ESPN, specializing in quantitative analysis. He is also a regular on "ESPN Bet Live" and helps cover sports betting. Seth has been at ESPN since 2017. He previously worked at the New York Daily News covering the Jets and Giants. You can follow Seth on X via @SethWalder.

          We're betting to win.

          And if I'm the one doing the betting, there are two keys I need to have the confidence to place the wager:

          1. A model-backed approach, or at the very least a quantitative-based angle. But almost all the bets in this column will be based on the outputs of models built by me, or occasionally by my colleagues at ESPN Analytics.

          2. A less-efficient market. NFL sides and totals are voluminous markets, and betting against those mainstream numbers is like wagering on All-Madden mode. It's why I often look to props (especially on defense!) and alternate lines. Less attention means less-efficient markets and therefore more opportunities to find value.

          Those two criteria make up the crux of this weekly column, though occasionally I'll recommend bets that satisfy one criterion or the other. Each week I'll post bets from our models in mostly lower-visibility categories with the simple goal of coming out ahead. We'll be looking at odds all across the spectrum, from -1000 to 100-1 -- as far as I'm concerned, value is value no matter the price.

          Results for this season can be found at the bottom of this story.

          Defensive player props

          Calais Campbell (MIA) under 0.5 sacks (-210)

          Somehow at age 38 Campbell has still been productive this year, with two sacks and a very impressive 16% pass rush win rate at defensive tackle that ranks fifth best at the position. But he's fighting base rates that are working against him here, and the model believes it's too much.

          Playing defensive tackle in general hurts anyone in terms of chance to record a sack, and last season Campbell's pass rush win rate was just average for the position. Second, the Dolphins are three-point underdogs. That's not overwhelming but in general we expect the favored team to be ahead and therefore be less vulnerable to sacks. Third, Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson has been slightly better than average at avoiding sacks in his career, with a 6% sack rate since the start of last year (league average is 6.8% in that same span). My model makes the fair price on the under -329.

          Riley Moss (DEN) under 5.5 tackles + assists (-135)

          This one is, again, all about base rates. Yes, Moss has gone over 5.5 combined tackles in four of six contests this year and has a high 11% tackle rate for the season. But to go over again he's swimming upstream against the nature of his position. There have been 255 games this year by players who have played outside corner at least 60% of the time and who played 90% of snaps. 69% of those player games went under 5.5 combined tackles. That's actually underselling it, because that's including only players who did play at least 90% of the snaps and not including players expected to play a full game but were injured or benched.

          Moss has also played only six games this year after barely playing last year: It's probably too early to be so sure to expect more tackles from him than most other corners. Plus, with Spencer Rattler starting and the Saints banged up at receiver, I would imagine New Orleans goes more run-heavy than usual Thursday. My model forecasts 4.3 combined tackles for him and given all that, I'm willing to lay the -135.

          Nick Bosa (SF) over 0.5 sacks (+135) (added 10/18)

          I have a long history of my model leading me to bet against Nick Bosa, much to the bewilderment of my colleague Dan Graziano. By my count, I had personally bet Nick Bosa's sack under prop 18 times (plus one season-long sack under) without ever betting his over...until Week 4 of this year. Something has flipped, and now my model is more bullish on the 49ers' great pass rusher than the betting market. Yes, there's one huge factor working against him this week: Patrick Mahomes, who has an incredibly low 3.8% career sack rate. This year, though, he's up to a 4.9% rate - still better than average, but higher than any season before (his one game in 2017 excluded). So the model is starting to not be quite so afraid of betting an over against Mahomes, and it makes the fair price here +101.

          See also:

          Running back receptions and receiving yards

          Alvin Kamara (NO) under 4.5 receptions (+105)

          We're back again fading running back receptions against man coverage defenses, building off the fact that running backs catch substantially fewer passes against man and that that doesn't seem to be fully baked into the betting market (at least in backtesting and the limited run of these props in this column this year and last year). Kamara against the Broncos fits the bill: The Saints running back is going against the heaviest man coverage defense in the league Thursday night, so we're going with the semi-blind under.

          See also:

          Alternate receiving yards

          Jaylen Waddle (MIA) 50-plus receiving yards (+150)

          I'll be honest, I have some trepidation here. The way this model works is it looks at a player's current and past over/under receiving yardage lines and combines that data with other information such as how often does the receiver runs vertical routes? Or what percentage of his team's routes does he usually run? Or how often does the opposing defense run man coverage? And, of course, the spread and total for the game. It uses all of that information to forecast a full distribution for receiving yards for the receiver's upcoming game.

          Since the model incorporates the receiver's current line (and the spread), it kind of understands when there's a major shift in role or expected quarterback play, but not totally, and so I've often passed on those situations when the model is truly missing something.

          In this case, it still is: Tua Tagovailoa is out again and clearly everything about Miami is different while he is. But Waddle has played three full games and one partial game without Tagovailoa, so there's a fair bit of that data now built into what the model is reading. That, and the fact that the model is particularly confident about the value here, makes me want to roll with it. Miami is also coming off the bye, so maybe the Dolphins figured out how to improve the offense with Tyler Huntley?

          See also:

          Anytime touchdown

          Jauan Jennings (SF) One-plus touchdowns (+300)

          My model is running back a losing bet from last week here, but it still sees more value on Jennings to score a touchdown than any other wide receiver. Ultimately, Jennings' numbers remain extremely strong, seeing as he's fifth among wide receivers in yards per route run (3.1), first in completed air yards per route (2.5) and 17th in target rate (28%). Those are really strong numbers!

          Jennings did play more and generated a ton of production in his Week 3 game against the Rams (85% of snaps, 175 receiving yards), but at this point that's just one game out of six, so I'm not overly concerned about the model overestimating his role anymore. It just sees a player that's playing a little over half the snaps, is efficient on those plays, and has a 39% (+156) chance to score a touchdown this week.

          Alternate totals

          New England Patriots-Jacksonville Jaguars under 34.5 (+220)

          This is all about weather! This is a London game, and the forecast looks blustery: wind forecasted to be 15 mph and gusts all the way up to 41 mph, per Accuweather. Plus, it is London, after all, with a 25% chance of rain.

          Our FPI+ model, which translates ESPN's Football Power Index into predictions that can measured against the betting market and includes weather, believes that forecast is underrepresented in the totals for this game. It prices this bet at +176.

          Past results

          Past results for this season are below. I wrote about the rules I set for myself regarding line movement and adding props in Week 1's column.