First Edition: Rookie QB’s
Well, with the NFL Season starting up in approximately 15 weeks, we’re loading up on some sneaky season-long player props, with two picks every week provided by yours truly. Every bet will be weighted the same (unit-wise), and I’ll be aiming to release these around the end of each week. Each article will also have a theme (as you see above, the first edition will be Rookie QB’s). With this strategy, we should have 15 units out there before the season starts! Pretty exciting in my eyes. But you have to manage the bankroll, and if you don’t have enough put aside for each play, reduce the units. Or, just take your favourites and fade the rest. In any event, this should get the juices flowing well before the season kicks off – and I think we’re going to get some value in different spots betting this early.
Okay, now that we got through that, we can get to the focus of today: Rookie QB’s. I’ve poured through the stats from the past five years regarding the Rooks, and have analysed everything from the coaching situation to the offensive line rankings. By doing this, I’ve been able to come up with some comps for the studs from this draft class, and I’ll tell you: they are not giving these guys much respect. And while historical data without context may support their stance with the low yardage lines – we have to look deeper to find the edges. And the two spots I have here have the best edges I could find – with one over pick, and one under pick. I’ll give a hint on the over – I may be painting my nails all year if this guy plays like I expect him to.
Without further ado, let’s get to it, starting with the aforementioned Over pick.
*Units for me will be $100. Bet responsibly.
Season-Long Passing Yards – Player Props (Futures)
Pick: Caleb William Over 3450.5 Passing Yards (-110) 0.5u
Okay, so the bookies have Caleb locked in at right around 3,500 yards. And granted, that might be a fair line with the historical difficulty of QBs adjusting to the speed of the NFL. But as we go through the historical data, this line looks supremely low given the context, and I’m comfortable with this line all the way up to 3,600 yards. Let me explain.
First, we go with the most recent example of a Rookie destroying this Total – CJ Stroud. 4,108 passing yards in 15 games played. Even without a full-season, CJ blew this line up. Now, look at his situation coming into last year. A severely underrated Nico Collins, an amazing Tank Dell, reliable Robert Woods, and a surprisingly good Noah Brown. Now, maybe not an amazing receiver room coming into the season, but still average. The excellence of Nico and Tank in particular was enhanced by the amazing play-calling of OC Bobby Slowick, who is a Shanahan Disciple and runs a similar offence to San Fran. Oh, and not to mention CJ’s O-Line, who actually underperformed on the year due to injuries, but still had a top-three NFL left tackle and two solid starters on the right side in Tytus Howard and Shaq Mason. Okay, so the check-list for a huge season yardage-wise is: Good Receivers, Good OC, Good O-Line, Highly Rated Prospect. Pretty damn simple when you think about it. Now, is there any Rookie that got plopped into a situation like this in the last five years and didn’t have success (in terms of passing yardage)? The answer: Hells no.
- Bryce Young? Highly Rated Prospect, Weak Receivers, Bad OC, Bottom Ten O-Line (per FTNFantasy). 2,877 passing yards (16 games played).
- Kenny Pickett (only because he’s a first rounder): Decent Talent, Good Receivers, Bad OC (Matt Canada = ass), Bad O-Line. 2,404 passing yards (13 games played).
- Zack Wilson (Top 5 pick after all): Decent Talent, Bad Receivers, Bad OC, Bad O-Line. 2,334 passing yards (13 games played).
These are the types of guys that have season failures when it comes to passing the pigskin. But why don’t we go through guys that have gone Over 3450 passing yards in their rookie season (or would’ve easily exceeded this number with at least 14 games played (accounting for some missed games)), going from least surprising to most surprising:
- Justin Herbert: Great Talent, Great Receivers (led by Keenan Allen), Good OC (Shane Steichen), Bad O-Line (ranked dead-last by PFF’s Final OLine Ranks for 2020, ouch). 4,336 passing yards (15 games played)
- Joe Burrow: Great Talent, Good Weapons (added Chase), Good OC (Zac Taylor calling plays), Bad O-Line (hence the torn ACL after 10 games). 2,688 yards (10 games played) – on pace for 3,763 passing yards over 14 games played.
- Mac Jones: Decent Talent, Decent Weapons, Good OC (still McDaniels at that point), Good O-Line (Top 10 in PFF’s Final O-Line Ranks for 2021). 3,801 passing yards (17 games played)
- Trevor Lawrence (wow, this was with Urban Meyer): Great Talent, Bad Weapons (Shenault and Marvin Jones topped the depth chart), Mess coaching-wise, Bad O-Line (24th in PFF’s Final O-Line Ranks for 2021). Still finished with 3,641 passing yards (16 games played)
Okay, so with all that being said, we see that a guy with at least a decent-to-good prospect profile, with decent weapons, an above-average OC, and a decent-to-good O-Line – will easily smash this Yardage Total. There were some guys missing key parts of this equation (Lawrence with his lack of weapons and poor coaching, Herbert with his downright shit O-Line), yet they still came out ahead because of their excellence in other parts of the equation (Lawrence with his amazing ability, Herbert with good weapons, a good OC, and a rocket arm). Now, let’s break down this whole equation for our star of the show, Caleb Williams:
- Prospect Level: Amazing Talent, regarded as Generational (kind of like Lawrence was coming out of College, likely even more highly regarded).
- Weapons: Unreal with DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, Rome Odunze, and Cole Kmet.
- OC: Shane Waldron just came over, coming from the McVay coaching tree and leaving his job as the Seahawks OC, where he had great success with the Geno Smith resurgence. After watching some tape breakdown (tape breakdown by the pros, I can’t break down tape as well as a 20 year vet in the game) of his offence, it’s very creative, with a lot of pre-snap motion that gives the QB an early indication of what he’s dealing with. Geno Smith’s passing yards with Waldron as the OC: 4,282 yards in 2022, and 3,624 yards in 2023 (15 games played). Yeah, I think Caleb Willaims can do pretty well in any offence Geno Smith excelled in.
- OLine: Actually pretty damn decent, ranking right around the middle of the league in preseason 2024 rankings I see. You’ve got the two young tackles, Jones and Wright, who both were solid but should progress to be even better this year. The Nate Davis and Ryan Bates FA acquisitions are pretty stellar (Davis specifically, consistently being above a 68 PFF grade in each of the last three years).
I’ve heard it all with Williams. Not a team guy. Prima Donna. Holds the ball too long (which actually isn’t exactly true, given the fact that a Pro Football Scout eliminated the plays he was forced to extend due to pressure (which he had to do a lot more than most College QBs due to his porous OLine and receivers’ lack of seperation) and he was right in the middle of the pack in time-to-throw). The trends are all there to show you why the Over is so juicy in this spot; it’s up to you if you want to follow them and believe in a guy who’s very in-touch with his emotions.
Pick: Jayden Daniels Under 3225.5 Passing Yards (-105) 0.5u
While we’re at it, let’s look at the equation for Jayden Daniels:
- Prospect Level: Great Talent, likely the No. 1 QB off Draft Boards most years.
- Weapons: Decent; McLaurin is consistently good-to-great, but Jahan is not it, and TE is an issue with ancient Zach Ertz and a Rookie.
- OC: Kliff Kindsbury comes over, and yes – he is a pretty good OC for this type of QB. Runs a spread and gets his QB’s a lot of looks, not only passing the ball but also running it (thereby reducing his passing yardage totals). Still guided Kyler Murray to just over 3,700 yards in his rookie season, but that was with Kyler healthy and playing every game (Kyler also had the 22nd ranked OLine per PFF final ranks that year)
- OLine: Very bad. Why didn’t these guys use one of their million first and second round picks to fill up an OLine that ranks bottom five in every preseason ranking I see? I get drafting the best player available – but you also need to protect your most important investment, Daniels. They have a serious hole at left tackle with Leno being gone, and left guard is just as much of a question mark with ex-Chief’s reserve lineman Allegretti being the projected starter.
Okay, so Great Talent, Decent Weapons, Good OC, Bad O-Line. It looks pretty similar to the Herbert situation, with slightly worse weapons. However, it’s the PLAYER that makes the difference in this one, not the situation. Herbert plays on-time, firing the ball out quickly with efficiency. He’s always been like that. This is much easier to deal with when the OLine situation is poor, compared to a guy who likes to create his own plays – pretty obvious point that a guy who can sling it quick negates pressure better.
Let’s take a quick look at an important stat when it comes to this point – Pressure To Sack Rate. PTSR is basically how often a QB turns pressure into sacks, and is seen as quite predictive for college players headed to the NFL. Daniels figure was 24.5% in his last year of College – most successful NFL QB’s are below 20%. Recent comparisons to this figure: Justin Fields (23.6), Desmond Ridder (24.3), Sam Howell (26.7), Malik Willis (26.0). That is not good. And yes, Caleb was above 20% in his last College year too, but the difference is the O-Line situations they’re walking into. Middle of the pack is a lot better than the bottom five, so Caleb should be fine. You also have to consider the fact that Daniels had guys like Nabers and Brian Thomas running routes for him (which should’ve meant quicker delivery due to greater separation) whereas Caleb didn’t have anyone at those guys’ level.
But it’s not just the PTSR, it goes deeper (quite literally). While his deep passing statistics increased this last year (and they should’ve with burners like Nabers and Brian Thomas), if you look at Daniels’ career (where he didn’t always play with first round picks that had large skill disparities over their opponents), the numbers are bad. Let’s just use the % of deep passing attempts for 1st & 2nd round picks since 2015, starting with the lowest percentage:
- Daniel Jones: 12.3%
- Dwayne Haskins: 13.2%
- Bryce Young: 13.3%
- Josh Rosen: 13.4%
- Bo Nix: 13.5%
- Mac Jones: 13.8%
- Jayden Daniels: 13.9%
That is not an inspiring list to be a part of. With the skill gap between his WR’s and opposing CB’s shortening, this may be a more accurate indication of how Daniel’s will be chucking the ball in his first year in the pros.
Past all that, we get to our last point: Injury. Now, we absolutely hope that Jayden Daniels can play 17 full games, because that would give us the best football possible and a fair indication of our read on the bet. But life’s not fair, and this bet comes through regardless of games played. Daniels is a reckless runner. There’s no stat for that, but just watch his highlight-reel running plays and tell me it doesn’t look like Anthony Richardson. You know, the same guy that couldn’t get through more than four games in a season with his style. Daniels’ just lets it all hang out there, and that’s extremely concerning at 6 ‘4’’ 210 lbs (that’s the teams’ figure, likely closer to 200 lbs). He doesn’t have the injury history you think he’d have, but he has a nasty concussion on his record from the game against Bama last year.
All in all, Daniels could definitely hit Over this line. Guys have done it, specifically mobile quarterbacks like Cam Newton (over 4,000 passing yards in Rookie season) and Kyler Murray (mentioned above). But there are differences in the OLine situations (Washington’s is worse than both of those teams), and Cam was a human-truck, while Kyler was much smarter with his running style. I see Jayden Daniels falling more into the bucket with Justin Fields, and while the situation is better than Fields, Justin only ended up with 1,870 passing yards in 12 games played (lots of room to work with considering this line). If you look at their college production profiles, Fields might not be the same level passer Daniels was – but he was still good, averaging over 250 yards/game his last two years at OSU.
It all adds up to me. Bad O-Line, doesn’t historically like to throw deep, reckless runner and slender frame, turns pressures into sacks at a high rate – I gotta go Under here, and suggest you do the same.
Well, that’s it people. I will be posting another betting article soon with NHL Playoff game bets. If you want to make sure you don’t miss these articles, follow me on X at @plusmoneypost as I will be sharing them there.
Summary of Picks
Season-Long Passing Yards – Player Props (Futures)
Pick: Caleb William Over 3450.5 Passing Yards (-110) 0.5u
Pick: Jayden Daniels Under 3225.5 Passing Yards (-105) 0.5u