Yank: We told you we would not be able to stay away. Much like many of you who are brave enough to click on this link, we have been reading mock drafts and scouring beat reporters tweets for months at this point trying to ascertain what will happen during the NFL draft. As usual we know nothing, but hopefully during purely prognostication season our guess is as good as the sports-books. We love a good prop bet and figured we’d share some of our favorites for you below. Let’s hope we find a couple diamonds in the rough.
Let’s start at the top of the draft with the dead horse topic everyone loves to keep beating: QUARTERBACKS. Everyone has known Trevor Lawrence is going 1 since he enrolled at Clemson. The Jets are enamored with the arm strength of Zach Wilson at 2. Some people think there is still some mystery left at 3 where the 49ers sent a king’s ransom of future picks and all of Kyle Shanahan’s hat design money to move up and take a QB. Conventional wisdom (and the betting line of -250) seems to favor Mac Jones. Not the direction I’d go personally, but I’m not constructing a football team here, just trying to win cash. The 49ers know who is going 1 and half the Jets staff worked for them months ago, they know who is going 2. That means they essentially have the number one pick and no reason to lie about their intentions. Smoke=fire in this case folks. So now, how do we take advantage? Justin Fields and Trey Lance will still be on the board at 4. If they can make it past Atlanta they should tumble for a while. Cincinnati at 5 and Miami at 6 need big time contributors, but not QBs. The slide may not end there. With all QBs in the top 3 we run into a similar story at 7 and 8 where a trade starts to become more plausible but the Lions and Panthers are going to be salivating to pick someone they consider a top 5 guy. I placed a couple of these wagers a few days ago and the lines have shifted a bit, but regardless we can get plus odds on both Fields and Lance to fall, which feels like surplus value.
Sam: Yank has laid the road map out quite nicely for how these bets will hit. Personally, I am less confident in the line for Lance. It seems to me that he has no business being a top 5 pick, whether it’s because he played at NDSU or has so little game tape that it’s *hard* to tell exactly how good he will be. That being said, there seems to be a lot of buzz and I can’t make heads or tails of it, so that’s a stay-away for me. With Fields, it seems like the NFL is doing what they always do – overthinking another talented black QB. This dudes’ performance in the CFP against Tervor Lawrence made the unanimous #1 overall pick look like a 3rd rounder. Sometimes football isn’t as hard as we make it out to be. Of course, there is room to be nervous here too. The weirdness surrounding the 49ers selection is confounding. I tend to agree with Yank’s smoke=fire description, because what purpose would it serve to thoroughly embarrass and deflate Field’s stock to then take him 3rd overall? Beats me, but that leads to one of the main themes for me throughout the draft – NFL teams are weird and are prone to boneheaded decisions. I fully expect the NFL to mess this one up like they did with Teddy Bridgewater and Lamar Jackson, so despite missing out on Yank’s spectacular lines, I got on board even lower.
Yank: $3 each on Fields O4.5(+160) and Lance O6.5(+115)
Sam: $5 on Fields O7.5 (+110)
Sam: This next pick runs counter to the theme I laid out in pick #1. We all just watched Devonta Smith have a career day in the FIRST HALF of the National Championship game. He murdered Notre Dame and Ohio State like Yank and I were suited up at CB. The odds are crazy high because Ja’Marr Chase might be even better than Devonta, but this guy is going to be a star and it only takes one NFL team to think that. While it seems like it’ll be hard for a WR to surpass Chase or slip between teams, it’s happened before. I’ll let Yank explain more..
Yank: Sam makes a good point about the WRs. That’s why I wanted to take a shot on a couple long-shot bets as well. For me, we know WRs are going to go high, and we know the draft media pretty uniformly has Ja’marr Chase ranked as a better prospect than the duo from Alabama. However these picks aren’t made by a consensus they are made by whatever team is picking, each of whom could rank the WRs in any order. Just last year Henry Ruggs was the first WR off the board when many people thought Jerry Jeudy was the overall better player. The Raiders aren’t many people, and I will not be surprised if any of these teams have a little Raiders in them. Admittedly this idea seemed like a better one a few days ago when I placed these wagers, the odds have only grown since speculation has ensued that the Bengals are locked in on Burrow‘s buddy Chase. Nevertheless I expect a WR to get picked at 4 or 5, and I would not be shocked if it turns out to be one of these two guys.
Sam: $2 on Devonta Smith First WR Drafted (+1000)
Yank: $1 each on First WR Drafted Jaylen Waddle(+700) and Devonta Smith (+800)
Yank: Finally we are left with some shot in the dark picks. A guy I have honed in on is Georgia edge rusher/LB Azeez Ojulari, who many draft analysts seem to think is the second or third best pass rushing prospect, but has not been getting as much love as the bigger DEs like Kwity Paye and Jaelen Phillips. Much like with the WRs it only takes one team to have a really high grade on a guy to have him go earlier than consensus. Edge rusher is a classic place where we’ve seen over and over teams place an incredibly high value on the position and are willing to spend first round picks. I was shocked to see Ojulari’s O/U at 26.5 last week as I expect 4 edge rushers to go between picks 11-22. The odds have moved down slightly validating my thinking, but some injury concerns have surfaced as well that may have eliminated Ojulari from some team’s boards. Hopefully some team picking above 26 is fine with his medical. I also took a tiny shot on Ojulari to be the first defensive player off the board a la Clelin Ferrell a few years back. As we’ve said a few times now, it only takes one team.
Sam: While I had no idea who Azeez Ojulari was prior to receiving the text with Yank’s selections, I can co-sign the idea that NFL team’s individual boards are much different than the consensus mock drafts. To Yank’s point, all it takes is one team to see certain traits, have an open slot, or like a system fit better than the traditional selection for guys like Ojulari to go higher than expected. For me, that guy is Gregory Rousseau out of Miami at +1700 for the first DL player drafted. There seems to be so little consensus around who the *top* edge rusher is in this year’s draft and I’ve seen his name up there at the top on more than one occasion, so why should his odds be so high? His opt-out status will likely make him fall, which is a theory neither Yank or I are actually pursuing, but wholeheartedly endorse. I’m also hedging this bet by grabbing Kwity Paye as the first DL player drafted at -125 and U16.5. He has essentially been the top prospect for the last 3 weeks and this is the most reasonable his line has been (in full disclosure, I almost had it at +110 but didn’t move quickly enough this morning, so keep your eye out there as the line shifts). It could certainly miss for all the reasons we just laid out, but we’re also dumb and bad at gambling.
Similarly, I made a few selections on the CB board too. Just a few weeks ago, the likes of Jaycee Horn and Caleb Farley were up there in consideration with Patrick Surtain II as the top CBs in the draft. Fast forward to today and everyone thinks that the Cowboys will be the first to take a CB and it will without a doubt be Patrick Surtain II. As we have pointed out repeatedly, the draft rarely shakes out the way everyone thinks it will. With the QB fascination stirring up the leaves at the top of the draft, I wouldn’t be shocked if the board shakes out way differently than anticipated. For instance, the Cowboys are sitting in a decent spot for a trade back should QBs fall and some team wants to take advantage or the QBs all go ahead of them and someone they weren’t expecting to be there becomes available. Is it a lock? Absolutely not. But is there a chance? You betcha. I wasn’t feeling as confident with Farley, so I took the Azeez Ojulari strategy from Yank. Farley’s consensus stock seems to have fallen over the last couple of weeks, but there are still a lot of teams in the mid round, prior to 24 that seem like prime CB teams. Here are the teams from 16-23: Cardinals, Raiders, Dolphins, Football Team, Bears, Colts, Titans, and Jets. Half of those teams have defensive oriented coaches and the other half all could use some help on defense, especially at CB.
Yank: $15 on Azeez Ojulari U26.5(-112) and $0.50 on AO to be First Defensive Player drafted (+4000)
Sam: $1 on Gregory Rousseau First DL Drafted (+1700), $3 on Kwity Paye First DL Drafted (-125), $5 on Kwity Paye U16.5 (-115), Jaycee Horn First CB Drafted (+120), and Caleb Farley U23.5 (+100).
Sam: Finally, I have a bonus pick for you. Yank and I usually try to take high odds for payouts so we don’t look too much at the favorites. Today, I’m taking a slightly different strategy. I love Bama O5.5 players drafted in the first round. It currently sits at -250, which I wouldn’t normally do but it feels like I’m printing my own money here. Let me lay out the case. There is no world in which Surtain II, Waddle, and Smith don’t all go in the 1st round. That’s 3. Additionally, it appears that Mac Jones is a lock for 3rd overall, but even if that turns out to be a weird smokescreen play by the 9ers, it seems unlikely he’ll free-fall much farther than that (and certainly not out of the 1st round). That’s 4. Barmore is a top DL prospect in a weak DL class and is certainly a 1st round talent. He’s one of those guys who’s been mocked as high as 14 to the Vikings and certainly shouldn’t be in danger of falling out of the 1st, especially with -300 odds to go in the 1st round. That brings us to 5. For the last slot, we are left with 3 potential picks. Harris who is -350 to go in the 1st round, Leatherwood sits at -110, and Dickerson is EVEN. Harris is talented enough to go in the 1st but could drop because of relative value (but let’s not forget about the overarching theme about teams being dumb), and while Leatherwood and Dickerson are mostly mocked in the 2nd round, it’s not out of the question that a team wants to secure one of those guys before they fall into Day 2. We’ve seen teams come up and grab centers recently like my Vikings grabbing Bradbury or the Saints grabbing Cesar Ruiz. That should be enough opportunity for this bet to hit no sweat (that statement was definitely this kiss of death).
Sam: $30 on Alabama Players Drafted O5.5 (-250)
One Last Line 