NFL Prop Picks: The Over To Bet For Cardinals vs. Seahawks On Thursday Night Football

Sean Koerner, our Director of Predictive Analytics, is highlighting his favorite prop(s) for every slate throughout the 2020 season. He has a 286-213-5 (57.3%) all-time record on NFL bets he’s tracked in the Action app.

NFL Prop Bet For Cardinals vs. Seahawks

• The Pick: Chase Edmonds Over 20.5 Rec Yards (-125)
• Bet Now: PointsBet

Kenyan Drake returned to the Cardinals’ starting lineup after missing one game due to an ankle injury. He erupted with 16 carries for 100 yards on the ground in their thrilling 32-30 win over the Bills. Drake should continue to dominate the Cardinals’ backfield in terms of rushing attempts again on Thursday Night Football, but the matchup against the Seahawks sets up nicely for Chase Edmonds, too.

Let’s start with the expected increase in production from the Cardinals’ overall passing game.

The Seahawks are on-pace to cough up the most passing yards by any team in NFL history, currently allowing an eye-popping 353 yards per game. Enter Kyler Murray, who has averaged 263 yards per game and is projected (by me and sportsbooks) to throw for about 20 more yards on Thursday night.

Edmonds has averaged 29 receiving yards with a median of 21, so common sense alone says this number is too low.

I’m projecting Edmonds to run a route on 50% of Murray’s dropbacks on Thursday night. Edmonds ran at a 54% clip last week in Drake’s return, so he will concede a little more work to Drake in Seattle, but Edmonds is still very much the Cardinals’ primary pass-catching back. There’s also a chance that the Cardinals don’t ramp up Drake’s usage much given he only recently returned from injury and they’re playing with only four days rest.

Let’s compare Edmonds’ underlying usage to my projections:

• His usage: 86% catch rate, 23% targets per route, 8.2 yards per catch
• My projections: 73.5% catch rate, 20.5% targets per route, 7.65 yards per catch

As you can see, I’m factoring in some pretty significant regression into his underlying usage, and am still showing value on his over — the market is undervaluing how little Drake’s return will impact Edmonds’ receiving usage. He had seven catches for 87 yards against Seattle in Week 7, so we’ve already seen his potential in this specific matchup.

Based on the results of my 10,000 prop simulations below, it’s essential to get the best number possible — every yard is worth 2-3%.

I would bet this up to 23.5 yards, but here are Edmonds’ projected chances of going over or under various lines based on my sims: