4 Season-Long Player Total Props to Bet

For the last three years, I’ve broken down my favorite season-long player props and wound up being profitable every season. With access to 4for4’s industry-leading projections, I’m confident I’ll be able to have another strong year by looking for my favorite DraftKings props and comparing them to those 4for4 projections.

Giants WR Darius Slayton Under 750.5 Receiving Yards

4for4 Projection: 687 receiving yards

Slayton is coming off a strong campaign where he racked up 740 yards on 48 receptions. So why am I not projecting another step forward in his second year? The former fifth-round pick compiled stats due to a lack of healthy pass-catchers and a banged-up Saquon Barkley.

Analyzing Slayton’s target shares last year in games he played with Daniel Jones, his three games with over 20% target share were a result of two of Golden Tate, Sterling Shepard, or Evan Engram sitting out.

• Week 6: Shepard and Engram out (Slayton had 25.8% target share)
• Week 10: Shepard and Engram out (Slayton had 37.5% target share)
• Week 13: Tate and Engram out (Slayton had 24.3% target share)

^{Image courtesy @notjDaigle}

Engram might be the biggest factor as Slayton averaged just 3.87 targets per game and never eclipsed a 13.8% target share when they played together. Conveniently, Slayton’s biggest games were Week 10 (10/121/2 on 15 targets) and Week 14 (5/154/2 on 8 targets from Eli Manning). Those games were largely a product of having only one other legitimate target being available. Removing those blowup games where he had no target competition and we see Slayton averaged just 38.75 yards per game (620-yard, 16-game pace) with a 13% target share.

I’m generally not a fan of the “remove his biggest games and extrapolate” analysis but in this case, it’s extremely relevant. If the Giants receivers were even remotely healthy, would Slayton have had those blow-up games? My bet is probably not. Shepherd, Tate, Engram, and Barkley are all legitimate pass-catching talents who will see a relatively significant target share.

Barring another season with multiple injuries to the Giants wideouts, Slayton will be no more than the fourth or fifth-best option in the passing game. Slayton is a classic example of a better real-life player than fantasy asset.

Another sound betting strategy is comparing his lines to other sportsbooks. Right now, Foxbet is offering Slayton’s O/U at 674.5 yards this season, a lot closer number to our projection at 4for4. Fade the hype, take the under on Slayton down to 700 yards.

Chiefs WR Tyreek Hill Over 1,150 Receiving Yards

4for4 Projection: 1,319 receiving yards

This is basically a “will Tyreek Hill have a relatively healthy season?” prop. Since Patrick Mahomes became the starting quarterback (2018), Hill has eclipsed 1,150 yards in both seasons (played 15-or-more in both).

Hill only had 860 yards last season but there were a few important injuries to note. In Week 1 he suffered a shoulder injury in the first quarter and didn’t return until Week 6.

After returning, he balled out for five games, averaging 105 yards per game. Then in Week 11, he suffered a hamstring injury in the first quarter against the Chargers which sidelined him for the rest of the game. In the games following, he never looked fully healthy. He was periodically seen limping and was often used as a decoy.

Even if we include the half-injured games in our sample, Hill only played in 10 complete games. In those games, he racked up 844 receiving yards (84.4 yards per game). That’s a pace of 1,350 yards on the year with a full 16 games played.

Hill has played in 15-or-more games in 3-of-4 career seasons and should be fully healthy entering 2020. With similar target competition and Mahomes still at the helm, I’m willing to bet that Hill will eclipse 1,150 yards fairly easily and approach 4for4’s projection of 1,319. I would bet Hill up to 1,200 yards.

Titans WR A.J. Brown Over 975.5 Receiving Yards

4for4 projection: 1,328 receiving yards

Foxbet lists Brown’s O/U at nearly 100 yards more (1,074), a much more realistic line. Brown broke out as a rookie even in Tennessee’s Derrick Henry-centric offense. Brown wound up with 1,051 receiving yards on just 52 receptions and 84 targets. Diving deeper into his season, he wasn’t even playing more than 70% of the offense’s snaps until Week 10. This correlated well with his end of the season breakout where he went for over 110 yards in 4-of-7 games and racked up 622 yards (88.8 yards per game). He also had a 24% target share in that time span. It’s more than likely we’ll see him playing nearly every snap in 2020.

Even if we see the Titans continue to pound the ball relentlessly with “The King” like they did last season, we have already seen Brown produce more than this total as a rookie. Like our projections at 4for4, with Brown seeing starter snaps for the entire season it’s easy to see how Brown coasts pass this total with a few weeks to spare. I would bet this up to 1,050 receiving yards.

Colts RB Marlon Mack Under 750.5 Rushing Yards

4for4 Projection: 483 rushing yards

When comparing all of the sportsbooks’ season-long player props to our projections, Mack’s line was by far the furthest off at -55.33%. With the Colts drafting Jonathan Taylor in the second round it’s not a matter of if Taylor takes over the bulk of the work, but when.

I don’t love using yards per carry as a metric of how good a player is or not, but for creating a range of outcomes I think it’s acceptable. Marlon Mack’s career yards per carry is 4.4 and last season he replicated that. If he continues on that pace of 4.4 yards per carry he would need 171 carries to hit the over on this number. If we assume he plays a full 16 game season, that amounts to 10.6 carries per game. That seems doable, but the issue is Mack has never played a full season in his three-year career with 14 > 12 > 14 games played.

So, let's say he plays 14 games. At the same 4.4 yards per carry clip, Mack would need 12.2 carries per game to hit the over. Last season the Colts gave the ball to their running back 24.9 times per game on average. This would mean Mack would need to capture nearly half of the rushing work, every game, for an entire season. The chances of that seem unlikely with early-second round pick Jonathan Taylor on board and Nyheim Hines still in the fold.

Mack needs a career-high in rushing efficiency (above 5.0 yards per carry), a Jonathan Taylor injury, or the Colts to run even more than last season to have a shot at cracking 750 rushing yards next season. I would take the under on Mack’s rushing yards down to 700 yards.

Pick Summary

I’ll probably have another write-up of season-long player prop bets before the year kicks off but for the time being, these were the only ones I’ve bet personally and recommend. Thanks for reading and if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on twitter @ConnorAllenNFL

Note: All advice in this article is based on odds available on the date of publishing.