Paul Kelly's Week 7 Props

Player Props Record: 36-17 (68%) Last Week: 5-1 (83%)

The wins keep piling up and It’s now been six straight weeks with winning records! We hit on 83% of my recommended player props last week and if you decided to go in on ALL the props that met my discrepancy criteria you went 15-6 (71%) showing once again that the player projections here on the site are crushing the bookmakers.

Here’s some background on the process I use to find the props featured in this article. Looking to get an edge over the sportsbooks, a couple of years ago I started comparing each of John Hansen’s player projections to the player props being offered by the books. I looked for the largest discrepancies between John’s numbers and the books’ numbers to identify betting opportunities. I’ve developed a good feel and a baseline for what constitutes a “significant” discrepancy between the projections and the props and I’ve been betting accordingly – shopping the various books for the most favorable odds of course.

It’s been my experience doing this that typically as we progress through the season the books begin to “catch up” to our projections…meaning there tend to be fewer actionable discrepancies the deeper we get into the season and we’ve seen that play out the last two weeks. That’s OK though because we’ll take quality over quantity any day and that’s all we need to be winners. Last week I narrowed it down to just six plays and we hit on five of them. Here’s a look at the player prop discrepancies I like most for Week 7 followed by a list of all of the significant discrepancies for the week.

James Conner vs. HOU

Conner is nothing special as a runner but there is a lot to like about him this week as the largest rushing discrepancy on the board. The Cardinals are 18-point home favorites against the Texans who are allowing the third-most rushing yards per game (122.0) to RBs. Conner outsnapped and outgained backfield mate Chase Edmonds last week and with Edmonds still not at 100% we can expect Conner to see plenty of work with a positive gamescript.

D’Andre Swift @ LAR

Swift has finished below this number in four of his six games and this week he’s up against one of the better run defenses in football. The Rams held Devontae Booker under this number last week and as 16.5-point home favorites this week they should be able to limit the number of Lions rushing attempts/yards. For as good as Swift has been for fantasy, his value has come as a receiver and TD scorer, not as someone who has run well behind the Lions beat up offensive line. He is averaging a weak 3.3 YPC this season and as Graham Barfield points out in this week’s Lions/Rams Game Hub, Swift is dead last in yards after contact and missed tackles forced per carry among 46 qualifying RBs, per PFF. Taking the under 11.5 carries this week is also viable as we have him projected for 8/25 rushing.

Justin Fields @ TB

Most of us were confused when Fields was barely running in his first few NFL starts but that changed last week when he scrambled for 43 yards on 6 carries against the Packers. The Bears probably don’t have much of a chance to get their RBs going against Tampa Bay’s #1 rush defense this week which should mean more dropbacks than usual for Fields. More dropbacks equals more opportunities to scramble. He could hit this number on his first carry.

Davante Adams vs. WAS

I’m always drawn to elite players with big discrepancies and we’ve got one this week with Adams. The Washington secondary is allowing the second-most FPG (46.4) to WRs this season and we’ve got Adams projected for the most receiving yards in the league this week. I’m not overthinking it. I’ll trust the projections and take the over.

Calvin Ridley @ MIA

This one looks mispriced on Draft Kings as the other books have this prop at 73 yards or higher so I’d hop on it at DK. It hasn’t been a great start to the season for Ridley’s fantasy production but he’s gotten double-digit targets in each of his last three games. The Dolphins secondary is beat up right now and they have allowed three outside WRs to top 100 yards in their last two games.

Marquise Brown vs. CIN

A two-catch discrepancy is pretty rare and Hollywood has been good to us this year more often than not. He didn’t come through last week but he has topped this catch prop in five of his six games this year and in all three of his career games against the Bengals.

***NOTE: The weather forecast for IND/SF looks terrible as of this writing which is why I’m currently staying away from Garoppolo, Wentz, Deebo and Aiyuk even though I like all of their props listed below.

Here’s the full list of statistically significant player prop discrepancies for Week 7. Happy Wagering!