Sixth Edition: I’m Getting Old
*We’re still catching up with the 6th article of this betting article series (this is the 7th week since we started) – but I will have two of these NFL Futures Betting articles out this week to catch up!
Your favourite NFL Futures Betting Article Series is back ladies and gents! It is now right around 9 weeks until Kickoff (just over two short months folks) – which means there’s another 10 free articles (making up for last week) on the horizon with 20 Futures bets waiting in the wings. If you haven’t taken a look at the previous articles in the series (they’re below), the premise is that each week leading up to the Regular Season, we scour the NFL Season-Long Futures lines for value picks before the season starts.
We had the first edition, Rookie QB’s, the second edition, New Offensive Coordinator Magic, the third edition, Overvalued Pass-Catchers, the fourth edition, Changes in the Trenches, and the fifth edition, Don’t Run Forest. As I said in the original article: make sure to manage your bankroll. Each bet for me is a half unit ($50), and we will end up with 30 total bets before the season starts ($1500 total) – so a lot will be invested prior to the season. Regardless, you can decide your unit-size, and this should give you some extra juice throughout the season, keeping the interest up all the way to the final whistle.
In this sixth edition, we’re going back to the RB’s to take a look at their season-long player props concerning rushing yardage totals. After taking a good look at the market and running some analysis, there are two key spots with aging RB’s where I’m seeing some value on the board. For one of these RB’s, a lack of either production or touches is inevitable, leading to a smooth Under pick with some injury-possibility baked in. For the other, the advanced age combined with the team-situation just screams Under. I mentioned this in the fifth edition of this series, but for those who didn’t read that one: Unders on RB rushing yardage totals hold value with injury-possibility – 28% of RB’s were healthy for the full season last year, while 48% of WR’s were healthy for the full season (per MassLive). We’re going to take advantage of this discrepancy in this edition – so I won’t hold you up, let’s get to the picks.
Previous Articles in Series:
*Units for me will be $100. Bet responsibly.
Season-Long Rushing Yards – Player Props (Futures)
Pick: Alvin Kamara Under 650.5 Rushing Yards (-110) 0.5u Bet365
For those who look at this line and go: “That number is way too low for a stud like Kamara, are you smoking crack?” – I don’t blame you. It looked low to me at first. But as I started to unravel why the bookies might have the line set here, I couldn’t help but see exactly what they see – the situation is way too bad in NO for a 29 year-old RB with contract issues. I just see it as being even worse than the bookies envision. Let me explain.
We’ll start with his statistical baseline. For as good as Kamara has been since he was drafted to the Saints 7 years ago – he’s never had 1000 yards rushing in his 6 seasons. His career high is 932 rushing yards in 2020, and last year was very dismal at just 694 rushing yards. You can point to the suspension that kept Kamara out early last year, but he still played in 13 games. For reference, Kamara has never played over 15 games in a season in his career – so it isn’t like last year was some absurdly small workload due to missed time.
In fact, Kamara had approximately the same rushing attempts last year as he did in 2020 (when he had 932 rushing yards), 2019 (when he had 797 rushing yards), and 2018 (when he had 883 rushing yards). And yes – Kamara’s rush attempts/game have increased since 2021 – but that’s kind of what I’m getting at here.
Each year since his workload has increased, his efficiency has suffered (very similar to Tony Pollard last year in Dallas). He goes from 5.0 yards/carry in 2020 (with 187 rushing attempts) – and from there, here are his yards/carry and attempts:
- 2021: 3.8 yards/carry (with 240 rushing attempts) – 13 games played
- 2022: 4.0 yards/carry (with 223 rushing attempts) – 15 games played
- 2023: 3.9 yards/carry (with 180 rush attempts) – 13 games played
That’s a troubling trend – made even more troubling by the fact that Kamara played the same amount of games in 2023 as 2021 – yet even with a lessened workload in 2023, his efficiency didn’t increase. There’s also a difference in the effectiveness of Kamara’s running style: He’s gone from averaging over 20 broken tackles/year from 2018-2021 (4 seasons) – to a whopping 7 broken tackles for both 2022 and 2023. Alvin used to be one of the most elusive backs in the league, with balance that would make a tightrope walker blush. That just isn’t the case anymore; and we have to start accepting that.
Now in all fairness: Kamara’s poor output is more on the Saints than it is on him. New Orleans is in a very tough spot right now, starting with the OLine they’re fielding this year. According to ProFootballNetwork.com, New Orleans is coming into this year with the 29th ranked OLine in the NFL. That’s piss poor. They did add a Tackle-of-the-future this year in the 1st round of the NFL Draft (Taliese Fuaga) – but there are glaring holes. The Left Guard spot is a huge issue with no clear starter, and the other Tackle spot is a mess with their only stud, Ryan Ramczyk, possibly missing all of 2024 with knee complications. I don’t even want to really see this offence without Ryan based on how poor they still were with him.
There’s also the wildcard that is Kendre Miller, a TCU alum 3rd round RB draft pick from last year. For a team that had so many holes to fill in the Draft last year – it was very telling when the Saints used a 3rd rounder on an RB with Alvin Kamara still on the team. The Saints are starting to look toward the future, and I would be extremely surprised if this doesn’t become at least a 60-40 workload split between Kamara and Miller (with some Jamaal Williams mixed in). It was already trending that way, even in 2022, when Kamara played 69% of snaps (15 games played) as the leadback without a real secondary option. Miller was hurt for a significant portion of last year (near the start of the year), which led to a tough time acclimating to the offence as a rookie, along with limited opportunity to show what he had. Kendre was a stud at TCU (1,400 rushing yards in 14 games his last season) – and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he had more rush attempts this year than Kamara.
The Saints did hire a new OC in Klint Kubiak – the 49ers passing game coordinator last year – so I guess you could say that Alvin is going to be the next McCaffrey, right?! Not a chance. Everyone goes on and on about how great the scheme is for RB’s in San Fran – yet they always seem to forget that Shanahan is a genius and the 49ers consistently have a Top 5 to 10 OLine in the League. Klint may try to import SF rushing concepts into his offence, but he doesn’t have a McCaffrey, he has a Bottom 5 OLine, and he was the passing game coordinator for a reason – Shanny didn’t trust him with gameplanning the run. I don’t see much 49ers magic carrying over here – in fact, I find it more likely that it doesn’t carry over one bit.
This last point just adds more complexity to Kamara’s season as a whole: this last June, Kamara left the offseason camp in protest. Can anyone guess why? That’s right – his contract. Kamara has a 10.2 million dollar base salary this year – and instead of restructuring the contract – the Saints decided not to touch it. Many people (myself included) believe this is to reduce the dead cap hit they’ll incur if they release him after this season (which makes a lot of sense with Kamara being owed 25 million next year due to previous restructures). So, it’s a stalemate. Kamara likely won’t sit out, but will the Saints really want to ride him til’ the wheels fall off when they don’t really have a chance of making the Playoffs this year? Especially if his efficiency stays so low? I’d be surprised. The Saints need to get a look at who their new era will include, and RB is one position where the transition from old to young couldn’t be any clearer.
So now, ask yourself – does that 650.5 rushing yard line still seem low? To me, it does not. So let’s go Under folks.
Pick: Josh Jacobs Under 1025.5 Rushing Yards (-160) 0.5u Bet365
Here’s another one where you must think I’m a big dummy.
“Josh Jacobs had 1653 rushing yards just 2 years ago, and now he gets a better OLine and a better offence with Green Bay!”
Fair point, fair point. But what if I told you that kind of season was the exception rather than the rule for Jacobs? Well, I am telling you that, because it’s true.
Josh Jacobs’ whole career, he’s played between 13-15 games a year. In his career year noted above (2022), he played all 17 games. I know it’s only 2-4 more games, but that can make a huge difference when it comes to the season-end totals. He also had an absurd 340 rushing attempts in 2022, when he only had 217, 273, and 241 rush attempts the 3 previous years. It’s actually unbelievable Jacobs stayed healthy in 2022 with 20 rush attempts per/game – and even more unbelievable that his output didn’t drop with muscle strains and pulls throughout the year. There’s no other way to put it – that year was an outlier.
If you take his 4 other years in the League, his highest rushing yardage total was in his rookie year (2019) with 1,150 rushing yards. Since then, his rushing totals are: 1,065 yards rushing (2020), 872 yards rushing (2021), and 805 yards rushing (2023). So he JUST cleared the Over in 2 of these 4 seasons, and that was when the man was still a spring chicken without 1,200 rushing attempts on his tires. That’s legitimately like 1,200 car crashes he’s absorbed – and people wonder why RB’s fizzle out early.
The OLine difference – I can’t argue much with. Green Bay does have a much better OLine than the Raiders (GB ranked 8th on ProFootballNetwork.com for 2024, LVR ranks 26th). But at the end of the day, in 2023, Green Bay’s OLine still only provided for 4.1 yards per carry compared to 3.9 yards per carry for the Raiders. In addition to that, the Packers will have to deal with some change upfront after losing starting Guard Jon Runyan and releasing long-time stud Tackle David Bakhtiari – while not picking up any notable free agents. With all of that considered …. I don’t know if GB will have better run blocking than Jacobs had in Vegas. They probably will, but how much better?
It’s not like Green Bay ran the ball significantly more than the Raiders did last year (only 2% difference between percentage of run plays for 2023). So his attempts should be similar to last year (233 attempts, 18 attempts/game).
With all of that considered – I want to lay out the ideal situation for Jacobs here. So, even with the losses of Runyan and Bakhtiari, let’s just be optimistic and say that Green Bay can still rush for 4.1 yards/carry (big stretch with those two key losses). Then, let’s add the max amount of games (15) Jacobs has played other than the 2022 outlier year. Lastly, let’s assume he has the same amount of rushing attempts/game as last year (which is another stretch with GB drafting stud RB Marshawn Lloyd in the 3rd Round of the Draft this year). Here’s what that would work out to:
4.1 yards/carry x 18 carries/game = 73.8 yards/game
73.8 yards/game x 15 games = 1,107 rushing yards
So, in reality, Josh Jacobs needs to have an optimal year to be over this line of 1,025.5 rushing yards. This doesn’t account for injuries, OLine ineffectiveness due to key losses, more touches syphoned by the backup, etc. If you want to be the guy with an Over yardage total that can only hit in the best of circumstances – I got one thing to say to you:
It’s always possible that Josh rediscovers his 2022 form and blows the doors off this Total. It’s just that the 4 other years of Jacobs career don’t support that happening. If Jacobs has 340 total rushes in a Green Bay backfield where Aaron Jones (the previous leadback) had a career high of 236 rushing attempts – I’ll eat crow and tuck tail. Playing the percentages is what sports betting is all about – and the percentages tell me the Under is the play.
Well, that’s it people. I will be posting another betting article soon with UFC and PGA 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 Rushing Yards – Player Props (Futures)
Pick: Alvin Kamara Under 650.5 Rushing Yards (-110) 0.5u Bet365
Pick: Josh Jacobs Under 1025.5 Rushing Yards (-160) 0.5u Bet365