NFL Prop Bets

This should be a fun prop to root for on Wednesday afternoon.

James Conner and Jaylen Samuels are both out, which means the Steelers will only suit up Benny Snell and Anthony McFarland at running back. Snell will likely dominate the rushing work, while McFarland will likely dominate the receiving work.

There are a few factors going against McFarland that would prevent this from going over. First, the Steelers probably won’t need to throw much to put away a decimated Ravens team. Second, Ray-Ray McCloud has siphoned the type of targets that would typically go to Conner this season. I can see him getting a few designed plays in the flat, which would be taking away potential targets for McFarland.

Lastly, this is a pretty volatile situation for which we are largely speculating. There's a chance head coach Mike Tomlin decides he can’t trust the rookie in such a crucial division game (despite the Ravens being depleted).

That said, the Steelers did draft McFarland in the fourth round to essentially be a change-of-pace back, so it would make sense for them to deploy him in this spot. So despite the obvious paths to the under, McFarland offers a ton of upside for this prop.

When he has run a route this season, he’s been targeted 38% of the time. And while it’s an extremely small sample size, it's encouraging to see that Ben Roethlisberger has targeted the rookie at such a high rate. I'm projecting him to run a route on about 35% of pass plays, which should be enough to see 2-3 targets. He essentially needs two catches to clear this number and even has the chance to clear it with a single reception.

I like the multiple "outs" he has to hit the over here.

My player prop simulator allows me to get a better sense of various different outcomes, and I project three possibilities with this one, so here are the probabilities of each:

• 0 catches (and I receive "is he even playing?" tweets throughout the game): 16.7%
• Gets a catch or two, but is held to fewer than 7.5 yards: 25.8%
• Goes over 7.5 yards: 57.3%

Now here are the projected chances of him going over or under various lines based on my sims: