Vivid Picks NFL Futures Plays
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NFL Futures take 6 months to settle but can be some of the best bets you will make. Especially betting unders. I went more in-depth here on why, but if you blindly bet the under, you would have won 61% of the time. If you throw in a little bit of analysis you can win at a much higher rate than that. Let's get into what you should be betting.
Vivid Picks NFL Futures Plays
You need to combine at least two of these on Vivid picks, and we recommend doing at least 3-legs to get a better expected value based on the payouts.
Geno Smith under 11.5 Interceptions
We have Geno projected for 8.9 INTs this year, and he had 11 last year. With JSN, he should be more efficient, and the addition of Zach Charbonnet puts the Seahawks in a place to be able to go run-heavy if that is what they want. Even if they don't he comes in under this.
Dak Prescott under 4,050 passing yards
I touched on this on Move the Line a bit but wanted to play it officially. Our median projection has this at 3,785 passing yards, and there are multiple reasons to like this under.
The Cowboys fired Kellen Moore, who drove the teams to a rapid pace the past few years. Per Pat Thorman with Kellen Moore at OC, the Cowboys have been Top-10 in No-Huddle % each year.
Plays per game (With Dak):
- 1st
- 2nd
- 1st
- 6th
Now Mike McCarthy has mentioned that he wants to run the ball more and try and keep his defense off the field by slowing the game down.
Fewer plays mean fewer total pass attempts, which can result in fewer yards barring a spike in efficiency. I'm not necessarily buying that they run a TON more, but in games with Dak, they were 21st in Pass rate over expectation last year, compared to 29th in games without him. I do buy that they will play much, much slower. So there is still a decent amount of room for them to pass less this season. On top of this, Brandin Cooks turns 30 in September and didn't look great for most of last season. Michael Gallup looked dreadful most of last season as well, returning from his surgery. Neither is a lock to return to form, and they lost Dalton Shultz.
The Cowboys' defense is stellar; with the addition of Stephon Gilmore, they will likely be able to handle essentially any offense this season after ranking top-5 in both run and pass EPA/Play last year. This puts even less pressure on the Cowboys to throw the ball more. They are favored in 12-of-17 games this season and aren't underdogs by more than 4 points all season. I expect them to add a veteran running back at some point to shoulder more of the load from Tony Pollard as well.
Season-long passing unders have hit 78 and 71% in the past two years if you want any more ammunition from a macro perspective.
James Cook under 720.5 rushing yards
The Bills signed Damien Harris in the offseason and Latavius Murray, both of which should be candidates for early-down work. Cook is explosive, but figures to soak up almost all of the pass-catching work, which might impact his early-down carries. We have him projected for 630 rushing yards.
Bryce Young under 3,475 passing yards
This is an aggressive number for the rookie. The Panthers made multiple additions to his receiving corps but most are extremely overrated. Adam Thielen has seen his yards per route run decline in 5 consecutive seasons while DJ Chark can only run vertical routes and is not good at separating. Young has looked slow to process early in the preseason, some of which isn't his fault given his lackluster receiving corps. The Panthers have also gone extremely run-heavy, a potentially common theme early in the season.
Jaylen Waddle under 86.5 receptions
We have 73 receptions projected and aggregate projections have him at 78. He had 75 last year and even if we extrapolate his per-game stats with Tua (4.7 rec per game when Tua has 30+ snaps) you are looking at 79.9 for a full 17-game season. Their defense projects to be significantly better as well which could force the Dolphins into fewer shootouts. I would not touch the yardage under as Waddle is incredibly explosive. This is playable to 84 receptions.
