Mark Andrews Prop Pick: Betting on Under 10.5 Touchdowns In 2020

Mark Andrews Prop Pick for 2020

• Under 10.5 Receiving Touchdowns [Bet now at PointsBet. NJ and IN only.]

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Mark Andrews is a fascinating player to project for 2020.

The Ravens tight end is coming off a breakout season in which he caught 64 receptions for 852 yards and 10 touchdowns. And while there’s reason to believe he'll improve on his receptions and yards this season, his scoring production could regress. I’m projecting him for 72 receptions, 886 yards and eight TDs as a result.

Let's break down how I arrived at those numbers, starting with his 2019 season.

He played in 15 games and sat out Week 17 in what was a meaningless game for Baltimore. But he battled shoulder, ankle and knee injuries throughout the season and was rarely playing at full strength. Still, I think the most significant factor that held him back was the three-way TE committee featuring him, Nick Boyle and Hayden Hurst. With Hurst now on the Falcons, it could open up Andrews for even more playing time — I’m expecting his rate of routes run per dropback to shoot up into the 70-75% range as a result.

Looking at the Ravens' passing attack, Lamar Jackson managed to throw for 36 touchdowns despite throwing for only 3,127 yards. I don’t think there's any reason to believe Jackson or this Ravens offense will slow down much, but some regression in TD production through the air is very likely. You could argue this will result in more passing yards to go around as a whole.

The Ravens ended up going 14-2 and were involved in four blowouts that allowed them to pull their starters for much of those fourth quarters. Even if they regress to a 12-4 or an 11-5 team this year, it should result in much more competitive games in which they need to keep their foot on the gas for much longer, meaning more snaps, targets and yards for Andrews overall.

But I fear Andrews' TD production is due for some regression.

He finished with a 15.6% TD rate (TDs/reception) last season — much higher than the league-average rate for TEs, which is around 8.3%. I would not assume that Andrews is an "average" TE or that the Ravens offense should be bound by such assumptions. However, we do have to scale back the TD rate expectations for both Jackson and Andrews this season.

I'm projecting Andrews for an 11.2% TD rate this year, and if we apply this to my rate stats for him I get 4.8 receptions per game and 12.3 yards per reception over 15.0 games played.