The NFL draft is finally here, and the hysteria surrounding the props market has reached a fever pitch.
In the last few days alone, we’ve seen wild swings in the betting markets for the No. 1 and No. 2 picks, as well as constant shuffling on the draft position odds of some of the biggest names in this year’s incoming rookie class.
That said, there’s still time to mine some potential value ahead of the draft.
Here are a few of our favorite prop bets to target at FanDuel ahead of Thursday’s opening round (with odds updated as of Wednesday afternoon):
Giants to select WR with first pick (+170)
Anyone who spent more than five minutes watching the Giants last year can recognize that this team had a glaring wide receiver problem.
So why is this prop dealing at such a juicy price?
It’s especially curious considering that the team has met with multiple receivers — including Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Zay Flowers and Quentin Johnston — ahead of the draft, and even our own mock draft has New York taking a receiver at No. 25 before opting for a cornerback at No. 57.
That seems to be the highest-value proposition in this year’s draft: Target a receiver near the end of the first round and grab a talented corner in the second.
With oddsmakers expecting the reverse, I love the value here on a first-round receiver heading to the Big Apple.
Anthony Richardson to be a top-5 pick (+100)
The closer we get to the draft, the harder it is for me to believe that Richardson won’t be one of the first five players off the board.
The Florida quarterback entered the draft process as a relative dark-horse candidate to crack the top 10, if that, but his electric combine performance and strong pre-draft process helped his stock skyrocket over the last two months.
He even flirted with consideration for the No. 1 pick before Bryce Young seemingly squashed that idea in recent weeks.
Even so, there’s a strong contingent of draftniks that have Richardson tabbed as their QB1, anyway, and I’d reckon there is at least one or two front offices that feel the same way.
Given the bidding war we’ve already seen among QB-needy teams to climb this year’s board, I’d be shocked if a passer with Richardson’s tantalizing ceiling slips out of the top five.
Under 4.5 quarterbacks drafted in 1st round (+158)
At least four quarterbacks will be among the first 31 players drafted on Thursday; that feels like a lock.
So this is essentially a bet on whether Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker will get drafted in the first round, which has emerged as one of the biggest debates of the draft.
At this price, I’m simply not buying it.
There is so much working against Hooker as a first-round evaluation: he’s 25 years old, he’s coming off a torn ACL, and he played in a Volunteers offense that did very little to showcase his ability to dissect defenses at the NFL level.
It seems like the biggest pro-Hooker argument, as it relates to his case as a first-round pick, is securing the fifth-year option — by which point Hooker would be 30 years old and command an elite quarterback salary if that option is picked up.
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That also casually overlooks the precedent we’ve seen of teams targeting non-surefire passers early in the second round, where the financial risk is lower and the upside is similar to the late first.
Even if you buy the smoke over the last few days of teams targeting Hooker in that range — and it could very well be true — this price has gotten out of control.
The value is clearly on a plus-money wager that he won’t sneak into the top 31, which feels like a 50/50 proposition at best.