NFL Player Props
What an interesting weekend we have in the NFL. The Divisional Round for this season features four outdoor games and the two road teams that normally play indoors are the ones who have the worst weather to contend with. Saturday’s two games in Denver and Seattle look good with sunshine and very limited wind, but Sunday’s two games in Foxboro and Chicago could present some major challenges.
There are fewer prop options (or proptions, if you will) for this week with just the eight teams in play, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good bets to be made. It just means that you’ll have to look a little more into the matchups, try to dig deeper into the psyches of the coordinators, and try to figure out the game state. In theory, much like we saw last week, these games will be tighter, which limits one of the ways you can attack props during the regular season.
OptaAI NFL Player Prop Projections are now available. Consult them before locking in your prop wagers this weekend. I did while putting together this week’s article.
And don’t forget that our friends at Fantasy Points have some excellent tools for not only fantasy football lineup decisions, but also NFL player prop betting. Use the promo code VSIN2025 to get a discount on their Data Suite, a collection of proprietary tools and models. To get an idea of what Fantasy Points has to offer, check out their WR/CB Matchup Tool.
As always, shop around for these Divisional Round NFL Player Props. Lines are as of 11:05 a.m. PT on Friday, January 16 and are from DraftKings.
Check out my First Touchdown Scorer props article here.
Here are some Player Props for the NFL Divisional Round:
Sam Darnold (SEA) Over 19.5 Pass Completions (-114)
Seattle was nursing a lead for most of the Week 18 game, so OC Klint Kubiak relied heavily on the run, as the Seahawks had 39 rush attempts against 26 pass attempts. Even with the relatively low volume in that game, Darnold still had 20 completions.
This is a 49ers defense that allowed a 68.2% completion rate during the regular season and had a league-low 3.3% Sack%. That was the lowest in the league by 1.3% (Ravens). But, the 49ers also allowed a 7.7-yard DADOT, which was better than the league average. There’s a lot of bend, but don’t break to this defense and that feels like something Kubiak will look to exploit.
San Francisco’s pass defense, including last week against the Eagles, sits 25th in Dropback EPA and 23rd in Dropback Success Rate against per RBSDM. The run defense has had its issues, too, but I don’t know that Seattle, despite what the line implies, will be in the same game state for this one that they were in Week 18, thus asking Darnold to do a bit more.
OptaAI projects Darnold for 21.48 completions.
Kyle Monangai (CHI) Over 9.5 Receiving Yards (-108)
It worked last week with Monangai, although that line was just 5.5, so we’ve seen an adjustment in his number. He had one catch, but it was a big one for 22 yards. In total, Monangai had three targets and that’s been part of the Bears offense lately. For the season, including the Wild Card Weekend, Monangai has 33 targets and 19 catches. Over his last four games, he has 12 targets and eight receptions.
Apparently Ben Johnson and Luke Getsy have figured something out. He’s had 43, 9, 15, and 22 yards receiving in those games. Given the wind and the cold, I’m not sure how many downfield throws we should expect in this game, which should give Kyle the chance at some catches.
The Rams allowed the seventh-most catches to running backs and fifth-most receiving yards. Game state played a role, as the Rams led a lot during the season, but I don’t think that’s the only reason and Monangai has a good chance at getting to double digits here.
OptaAI projects Monangai for 9.83 receiving yards.
Christian McCaffrey (SF) Longest Reception Under 16.5 Yards (-110)
Without George Kittle, you’d have to assume that the Seahawks are going to be able to pay a little extra attention to McCaffrey. In two games against the Seahawks this season, McCaffrey averaged 8.1 and 5.7 yards per reception, both well below the 9.1 yards per catch he had this season, which feels like a pretty low number on the whole for him.
In the Week 18 rematch, McCaffrey’s long catch was nine yards. The Seahawks had a lot of moving parts in Week 1 with some coordinator turnover and other new faces, but they were locked in for Week 18 and allowed just three points. For a Seattle team that has allowed the sixth-most receiving yards to running backs and the most receptions to do that to McCaffrey speaks to how they gameplanned for him.
Without Kittle to help stretch the field vertically and horizontally, I seriously question whether or not CMC will be able to do as much in space as he’d like to do.
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