Best Regular Season Under Player Props
Jared Goff (Detroit Lions) Under 20.5 Passing Touchdowns (-120)
Sean McVay was tired of Jared Goff and shipped him off to every player’s worst nightmare: the Detroit Lions. His over/under of 20.5 passing touchdowns is optimistic considering his receiving options and coaching will be worse than what he got in Los Angeles. Goff showed signs of regression by throwing for just 20 touchdowns in 2020 and 22 touchdowns in 2019. When you perform that mediocre with Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, and Sean McVay calling plays, it’s not a good sign for when you face adversity.
As mentioned, Jared Goff will simply be low on dynamic weapons to throw the ball to. The only thing Detroit is competing for this year is the status for worst wide receiver group in the league. Tyrell Williams and Breshad Perriman are decent third or fourth options for an offense, but asking them to carry the passing game is too much to ask. Perriman’s best year came in 2019 when he had 645 yards and 6 touchdowns. While considered a solid option at one point, Williams hasn’t had 750 yards or 6 touchdowns since 2016. He also has an injury history and didn’t play last year due to a torn labrum. These are the Lions most proven receivers, with second year Lion Quintez Cephus and fourth round rookie Amon-Ra St. Brown competing for everything behind that.
Third year tight end T.J. Hockenson is poised to have a big year as he’s the only proven receiving threat that’s been in Detroit more than two seasons. He’s an ascending young player, but his success as a player probably won’t translate into touchdowns. In his young career he has yet to catch more than six, and in general tight ends aren’t always the redzone threats they’re perceived to be. Tony Gonzalez only had 6 seasons with 8 or more touchdowns; George Kittle has a career high of five touchdowns. Even Travic Kelce has only broken double digit touchdowns twice, but both of those times came when Patrick Mahomes was starting.
The Rams were so desperate to get rid of Goff that they traded two first round picks and Goff for Matthew Stafford. If the Rams are right and Stafford is that much better than Goff, then it’s worth noting that Stafford threw for 26 touchdowns last year for the Lions. That was with Kenny Golladay, Danny Amendola, and Marvin Jones, all of whom left in free agency. Stafford would struggle to throw for 21 touchdowns on this roster, let alone the man the Rams shipped out of town for him.
Kenny Golladay (New York Giants) Under 1000.5 Receiving Yards (-110)
Kenny Golladay is another player that is getting a substantial downgrade in terms of supporting cast. Last year Golladay played 5 games and the New York Giants rewarded him with a 4 year, $72 million contract. Gone for Golladay is the quarterback he spent the last 4 years building chemistry with, Matthew Stafford, and so was his role as the obvious top target in town. In comes a bevy of competitors for targets and a huge downgrade in who’s throwing Golladay the ball.
Golladay has only cracked 1,000 yards twice in his career so far. In those two seasons, Golladay had much less competition for targets than he’ll currently have. In New York he has to compete with Evan Engram (who the Giants still believe in for some godforsaken reason), Sterling Shepard (who they gave $41 million to despite never gaining 900 yards in a season), Darius Slayton, dump-offs to Saquon Barkley, and new first round draft pick Kadarius Toney. Back in Detroit during his 1,000 yard campaigns, all Golladay had to compete with was T.J. Hockenson and the oft-injured Marvin Jones.
Speaking of oft-injured wide receivers, Golladay has more of an injury history than most recognize. Golladay has only played in 16 games once in his career and has two years of missing at least five games. That includes last year where he played only five games total. For a guy who’s best season was 1,190 yards in his lone fully healthy season, missing any amount of games could be the difference maker between the over or the under hitting.
Again, Golladay is taking a pretty big downgrade in terms of quarterback play. Daniel Jones has shown flashes but hasn’t been consistent enough to be a net positive to an offense. The Giants and Jason Garrett have surrounded him with as many skill position players as possible, but the highest yardage a receiver has obtained during the Daniel Jones era has been 751 yards by Darius Slayton.
There also isn’t a great track history of pass catchers leaving Stafford and finding similar or greater success than they achieved in Detroit. For example, Golden Tate played for the Lions from 2014 until the trade deadline in 2018. In those 4 and a half seasons, Tate had three 1,000 yard campaigns and was on pace for a fourth until he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles midseason. His yards per game dropped drastically from 73.9 to to 34.8, and after the season he signed with those same New York Giants Golladay just went to. Tate failed to crack 700 yards again and is now a free agent.
Eric Ebron is the closest we have to someone leaving Stafford and finding any success, but that took the entire wide receiver core of the Colts to end up on IR and for a heavy dose of endzone targets to be thrown by Andrew Luck. Daniel Jones is not in the same stratosphere as Luck, and Golladay has too many other players around him demanding targets. Take the under on the wide receiver with an unideal situation around him.
Jonnu Smith (Tennessee Titans) Under 525.5 Receiving Yards (-115)
Tom Brady left the Patriots and their offense suffered as a result. Cam Newton was ineffective and injured for most of the year. The Patriots passed for less than 3,000 yards and couldn’t get anything consistent out of their passing game. Jakobi Meyers and Damiere Byrd led the team with 729 and 604 yards, respectively. No one else cleared 400 yards.
The Patriots wanted to revamp their offense, and signing a bunch of mid-tier free agents was the best idea Belichick and Co. could come up with. In come wide receivers Kendrick Bourne and Nelson Agholor alongside tight ends Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith. Whether that’s enough to aid the offense to bring the Patriots back to contention is yet to be seen, but the likeliness of Smith contributing more than 525 yards is slim.
For Jonnu Smith, his career high is only 448 yards, and that was in an offense with Ryan Tannehill throwing the ball. Both offensive coordinators he’s had, Matt LaFleur and Arthur Smith, performed so well in their roles that they parlayed it into head coaching gigs. It didn’t appear to either of those supposed offensive geniuses to involve Smith more than his high of 65 targets last year.
As mentioned earlier, Smith’s career high is only 448 yards. Vegas is setting his over/under a full 77 yards ahead of anything he’s ever accomplished. Again, that was in a better offensive system, and last year’s Tannehill is a better quarterback than anything Mac Jones and Cam Newton can provide this year. Plus he had less competition for targets in Tennessee. Smith was the third option behind A.J. Brown and Corey Davis, but in New England he will have to compete with the aforementioned free agent signings. With so many new pieces it’s a crapshoot as to who will be the top targets this year. Not to mention that of the 440 total passes New England attempted last year, 143 targets went to James White and Jakobi Meyers, both of whom are still there. All of the players mentioned in this paragraph have cleared at least 500 yards in a season, something Smith can’t say he’s done.
Henry will be Smith’s biggest competition as the fellow tight end on the roster. Henry has injury concerns, but every year he’s played he’s been more productive than Smith in terms of yards. He’s more talented and has a more proven track record. Most everyone he’ll be competing with has a better track record than Smith in terms of productivity. The idea that Smith will come into a worse situation and have his best season by a full 77 yards, or a 17% increase from his career high, is too much projection.
Aaron Rodgers (Green Bay Packers) Under 8.5 Interceptions (-140)
The rumors turned out to be true that Aaron Rodgers was highly dissatisfied with the Green Bay front office and potentially wanted out. Even with the noise and smoke, it’s hard for anyone to turn down more than $30,000,000 to throw a leather ball. Rodgers loves his locker room and his coaches, claims to be refocused, and should be his normal dominant self this year.
Rodgers hitting 9 interceptions this year is an extremely unlikely event. He’s entering his 14th season as a starting quarterback and he’s only thrown 9 interceptions or more twice in his career. The first time was in 2008, Rodgers’ first year as a starter, and the other was in 2010. That means that in his last 10 years as a starter he has yet to throw nine interceptions.
The numbers have been even better since Matt LaFleur took over as the new head coach in 2019. In 2019 Rodgers threw just 4 picks and last year only 5. Keep in mind that Rodgers’ career interception percentage is already an incredibly low 1.4%. In the LaFleur era, Rodgers has dropped that to just 0.85%, with his worst year being a measly 1%. LaFleur and Rodgers have an obvious connection, and in his returning press conference Rodgers stated he’s had a “blast” with LaFleur. His issues in Green Bay are not with the offensive system.
Rodgers has attempted an average of 547.5 passes each year with LaFleur including a high of 569 attempts. If he attempts his high with LaFleur of 569 again, Rodgers would need to have an interception percentage of 1.5% to hit the over, above his career average but ever so slightly. Furthermore, Rodgers hasn’t had an interception percentage of more than 1.4% in any of his healthy seasons since 2010.
There might be a little more pressure this year, both figuratively and literally, as center Corey Linsley departed and tackle David Bakhtiari is in the process of rehabbing a torn ACL. However, Rodgers has had worse coaches and worse teams around him and has largely managed to avoid throwing nine interceptions. Rodgers is known for throwing the ball away and taking bad sacks to avoid interceptions. His play style is aggressive yet conservative when it comes to turnovers. Rodgers is the epitome of living another day and not taking unnecessary risks. That theme will continue and Rodgers will throw for less than 9 interceptions this year.
All stats come from Pro Football Reference. All odds come from DraftKings and are at the time of upload.
