I’m not currently making videos over on the BDGE YouTube channel (no beef, I just decided to take a step back while I focus on this website and study for the LSAT), but I used those airwaves to offer recommendations for PrizePicks’ player prop parlays for every Thursday Night Football slate last season. Those recommendations were pretty successful -- I ended the year with a 61.8% hit rate despite limiting my picks to the props available for TNF games, and anyone who followed my advice for the entire season would have been up 44 units by the time week 18 came to close (and would have been 6 units up on the entire season’s worth of weekly entries by the time week five was over) -- but I wasn’t planning on doing them again this season until a couple people asked me about them on Twitter a couple days ago.
I said then that I would get back on the horse if PrizePicks gave me my own referral code, which hasn’t happened, but I’m nothing if not a man of the people. So, here I am with PrizePicks recommendations for today’s opener between the Lions and Chiefs (though I haven’t decided yet if I will continue writing these articles in the event that PrizePicks doesn’t end up issuing me a referral code, so this might be the only one of these all year). Enjoy.
How this works:
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These recommendations are only hypothetical and should not be construed as actual gambling advice (amirite). “Locks” appearing as part of the title of this article should also not be construed as any sort of guarantee, as I am not a magician, fortune teller, or locksmith but simply a person who had some success making these recommendations during one NFL season.
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If it matters to you, please know that I live in Idaho, a state in which online sports gambling is currently illegal, and because I’m not particularly interested in driving 45 minutes to and from the Oregon state border every week, I am not personally placing the bets contained in this article or future iterations of it.
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Recommendations will be for PrizePicks’ 5x5 Flex Play option, which basically means I choose the five player props that I like the best on a given Thursday slate. If all five hit, those placing the corresponding bets would 10x their entry fee. If four hit, it’s 2x. If 3 hit, it’s 0.4x. Anything less is a zero. Official rules can be found on PrizePicks’ website.
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As in the videos from last season, I may sometimes offer “honorable mention” recommendations, which essentially amount to the B-team of picks in a given week.
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Because logistics, I am writing this article on Wednesday, and some lines may move between writing and publishing, between publishing and you reading, between you reading and placing bets, etc. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter with questions about new lines if that happens, though I can’t promise I’ll have a strong take.
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If PrizePicks is offering some sort of discounted promotional prop that is not part of the TNF slate (as they are this week with Dak Prescott’s line of 0.5 passing yards), I will mention it but not include it as part of my official recommendations because that would go against the spirit of the TNF-only project. If I were actually placing these bets, I would of course include those easy-money props in my entry as a virtual free square.
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My first three picks will be free and the last two (in addition to any honorable mentions) will be thrown behind the paywall. Non-subscribers can still make use of the recommendations given that PrizePicks also offers a 3x3 Flex Play option, but shout-out to those of you supporting me and this website with a sub. Much appreciated.
Enough nonsense. Here are the week one picks:
The Chiefs defense was top-five in the league (in a bad way) in both receptions and receiving yards given up to running backs last season, Gibbs is one of the best pass-catching running back prospects we’ve seen in recent history, he plays with a checkdown-machine quarterback, has a coaching staff that talks incessantly about using him in creative ways in the passing game, and the Lions have the 11th-highest implied team points total in a matchup against the Chiefs that has the highest over/under in the league this week. Among the stalwart receiving weapons who topped this line against Kansas City last year were Eno Benjamin, Kyle Juszczyk, Samaje Perine, Marlon Mack, DeeJay Dallas, and Chase Edmonds, and a total of 10 different running backs eclipsed the mark in regular season games versus them in 2022 (in addition to Jonathan Taylor and Nyheim Hines combining for 43). Gibbs’ receptions line of 3.5 is also nice, but I slightly prefer the yardage just because he could take a screen (or a deep shot) for 30+ on a single play.
The Lions don’t have a good rushing defense (they gave up the 12th-most yards and the third-most yards per carry last season), Travis Kelce seems unlikely to suit up for Kansas City (or perhaps be limited if he does go), and the Chiefs don’t have many (any?) proven receiving options outside him. They’ll be able to throw the ball just because Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback we’ve ever seen, but it seems like a relatively run-heavy approach would behoove the defending champs in this particular game. Pacheco averaged 13.6 attempts and 69.2 yards on the ground from week ten through the Chiefs’ Super Bowl run last season, a stretch during which he hit this line in 10 out of 12 games.
With Jameson Williams suspended (and probably even with him in the lineup), it would stand to reason that the main receiving weapons for Detroit will be Amon-Ra St. Brown and Gibbs, who both operate primarily in the short and intermediate segments of the field. If that’s the case, then we might be looking at a target squeeze in those areas for the tertiary players in this passing game, which is exactly how a tight end like LaPorta profiles. I don’t have a strong take on where he stacks up as a talent, but among 43 tight ends drafted in the second or third round in the last ten years (a group that includes Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, Zach Ertz, Hunter Henry, Dallas Goedert, Dawson Knox, Pat Freiermuth, etc.), only two hit the over on this line in their NFL debuts: Jordan Reed did it on five catches in 2013, and Gerald Everett managed 39 yards on his one reception back in 2017. Even among first round tight ends in that time-frame, the debut hit rate on this line’s over is just 33%.
The thought process behind this one is pretty simple: Mahomes averaged 21.1 rushing yards per contest and hit this mark in 58.8% of his games in 2022, his best receiving weapon is either playing hurt or not playing at all, and the Lions gave up the most rushing yards to quarterbacks among any team in the NFL last season (and would’ve given up the seventh-most even if we remove the 369 yards that Justin Fields and Jalen Hurts combined for against them). In total, 11 of the 17 quarterbacks that Detroit faced last year hit the over on this line, including guys like Carson Wentz, Tua Tagovailoa, and Aaron Rodgers, each of whom more than doubled their season-long rushing yards average against the Lions.
Butker averaged exactly 7.5 kicking points last season, but he hit the over on this line in just seven of his 16 games, while kickers against the Lions averaged 7 kicking points per game and eclipsed the 7.5 mark in just seven of their 17 games. Full disclosure: the numbers like this line, but I don’t love it and kickers can be pretty fickle. If you’re inclined to pass on this one, I’d recommend subbing it out for one of the following honorable mentions (or just go with the promotional Dak passing yards line), listed in order of my personal preference.
Montgomery hit the over on this line in just over half of his games with the Bears last season, while Jamaal Williams -- who Montgomery is presumably replacing one-for-one in the Lions’ rushing attack -- hit it in 12 of his 17 games on his way to averaging 62.7 yards per contest. The Chiefs did give up the seventh-fewest rushing yards to running backs in 2022, but the 17th-ranked per-carry average they gave up makes it seem like their volume-based success against the run was largely a function of their enjoying leads that teams were forced to pass in order to make up. Chris Jones is also not playing tonight, so any legitimate stoutness this defense has on the ground is likely to be substantially lessened.
This pick is based almost completely on vibes. McKinnon averaged 3.3 receptions per contest but hit the over on this line in barely more than half of his games in 2022, and the Detroit defense gave up the second-fewest receptions to running backs in the league. However, McKinnon is also the kind of guy who the Chiefs lean on when they particularly need a spark, and in a game in which they’ll have few reliable receiving options, he could have one of those nights.