It’s just over two weeks until kickoff of the new NFL season so the sportsbooks are starting to unload their props for passing, rushing, and receiving yards leaders. If you’ve been crunching the numbers on these stats for your fantasy football draft they can also come in handy when making a few prop bets.
Let’s start with the most passing yards prop. The favorite right now is New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees at +300. This should come as no surprise after Brees led the league in passing last season with 4,870 yards. He did that in 15 games, which means he also averaged 327.7 yards per contest.
That puts Brees in pretty exclusive company as only one other quarterback in the entire league averaged more than 300 passing yards per game last season. The other one was the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger, who follows Brees on the odds list at +600. Big Ben averaged just a touch more than Brees with 328 yards per game last season, but he fell short of his total with 3,938 yards because he only played in 12 games.
Philip Rivers rounds on the top three options on the props list at +800. He just missed the 300-yard per game mark last season, averaging 299.5 yards per game to tally 4,792 yards.
Turning our focus to rushing yards, the favorite on the props is Minnesota Vikings back Adrian Peterson at +350. Last year Peterson won his third rushing title after piling up 1,485 yards. He averaged 92.8 yards per game and the only other player to crack the 90 yards per game mark was the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Le’Veon Bell. However, Bell only appeared in six games and since he’s starting the season with a three-game suspension he’s a massive +3300 underdog to lead the league in rushing.
Legitimate challengers to Peterson’s crown include Todd Gurley at +500, Doug Martin at +1000 and rookie Ezekiel Elliott at +1200.
Gurley was third in rushing last season despite missing three games. Martin finished second, 83 yards behind Peterson in a rebound season. Elliott could be the wild card because there are no numbers to go on, but in his last two seasons at Ohio State he rushed for over 1,800 yards.
Finally, on the receiving prop the favorite is the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Antonio Brown at +200. Right behind him at +300 is the Atlanta Falcons’ Julio Jones, who led the league last season with 1,871 yards. Brown was very close at 1,834 yards.
Brown and Jones both averaged over 110 yards per game last season and no other player in the league hit the 100-yard per game mark. Unless Brown or Jones gets injured one of them could easily walk away with the receiving title.
The only other players that may have a shot are Odell Beckham (+750), DeAndre Hopkins (+1000) and A.J. Green (+1800). If you’re looking for sneaky longshot pick try to find some odds on Josh Gordon; he led the league in receiving in 2013 but hasn’t been able to play a full season since.