Betting
9/21/22
4 min read
Thursday Night Player Props: Steelers vs. Browns
Last week, we finished 4-4 on our props. We were one 79-yard TD rush by Lamar Jackson from cashing his under-rushing yards prop, and Matt Ryan's poor performance ruined Jonathan Taylor’s chance to go over his rushing yards prop.
Props for this season are now 11-8-1, so let’s keep the positive record going into Week 3 with a divisional matchup between the Steelers and the Browns. As always, the player props are listed in order from my least favorite to favorite.
Chase Claypool UNDER 39.5 Yards Receiving
In regulation this season, Claypool has 40 total air yards on 9 receptions. He only has 1 target of more than 6 air yards, which happened in overtime. He is not a yards-after-catch machine either this season. On passes with 5 or fewer air yards last season, he averaged 4.6 YAC. This season, he is at an abysmal 1.38 YAC. With Trubisky not using Claypool downfield, and Claypool’s terrible yards after the catch, I am confident in playing this play under until 30.5
Kareem Hunt OVER 15.5 Yards Receiving
During the last two weeks, Pittsburgh ran cover-1 and cover-2 defense about 70% of the time. Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine had 6 of their 10 receptions against those coverages. Additionally, all 3 of Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson’s receptions, were against those two coverages.
In two games this season, Hunt’s had 5 of his 6 receptions in a one-score game. I don’t see a blowout happening, so it’s good to see he’s getting usage in neutral game scripts. I would play this over until 19.5.
David Njoku OVER 20.5 Yards Receiving
The Steelers have played cover-2 for 32.6% of plays this season, which is one of the highest percentages of cover-2 in the NFL. When the Steelers played the Bengals in Week 1, Hayden Hurst had 3 catches for 35 yards on 4 targets, and Tyler Boyd had 2 catches for 28 yards on 4 targets against cover-2. When they played the Patriots last week, Jakobi Meyers had 3 catches for 24 yards on 3 targets. What all these receptions have in common is that they happened between the hashes.
Assuming the Steelers continue playing a lot of cover-2 (they were 3rd highest last season, too), there should be a nice hole in the center of the defense for Njoku to take advantage of. Njoku also went over 20.5 yards receiving in both games last season against the Steelers. I am very confident about this play, but there is not much wiggle room for a player who does not see much usage. I would play it over until 24.5 rec yards.
Correlated Stack Play:
Trubisky UNDER 195.5 Pass Yards and
Claypool UNDER 39.5 Yards Receiving and
Njoku OVER 20.5 Yards Receiving and
Jacoby Brissett UNDER 92.5 First half Pass Yards
Thursday night's total is only 38.5. There is a high chance this is a terrible game for both offenses. PrizePicks alters payouts if you select all unders, so I added the Njoku over because I think it is reasonably safe, even if the game goes way under.
Brissett is averaging 88 pass yards in the first half in the first two games. I like the first half play better than the full game under. I expect the teams to come out slow, so I think this is both a great play and also avoids the altered payout and pays out at the full 10x.
Bonus Prop: Christian Kirk OVER 64.5 Yards Receiving
Kirk is averaging nearly 100 yards receiving per game and has already established himself as Lawrence’s favorite option. His 26.5% target share in the Jacksonville offense should easily propel him over this yardage prop in a game that has a chance to turn into a shootout against the Chargers.
Instead of saving this play for Sunday’s player prop article, I added this one here because I guarantee this will move higher before game time as it already has moved from the 62.5 yards receiving it was posted at. This play is currently a value that I will be playing up to 70 yards receiving per game.
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