Latest Betting Picks

Novig

Barner has only cleared this in 1 of 5 games, but I think this is a pretty sneaky buy-low spot. Denver is usually a man-heavy defense, but with Patrick Surtain and Riley Moss out last week they shifted much more toward zone and used two-high/MOFO at a 66% rate, second-highest in the league. Surtain is already out, Moss is questionable and Talanoa Hufanga is out too, so I’m expecting a fairly similar approach. That matters because Barner’s target rate is 6% higher against two-high/MOFO. And his usage with Sam Darnold has been much better than the early-season numbers suggest. With Drew Lock handling most of Weeks 1-2, Barner had just a 9% target rate. In Weeks 3-5 with Darnold, that’s jumped to 22%, and against two-high/MOFO specifically he’s been at 24%, only 2% behind JSN. I’d also expect Denver to devote plenty of attention to JSN, which could leave Barner with even more room underneath. Alex Singleton has been targeted 27 times in coverage, most among LBs, so there’s a pretty obvious matchup path too. Barner is also coming off a season-high 81% routes run rate and has caught just 60% of his targets this year after typically being closer to 76%, so there’s some positive catch-rate regression incoming too. After adjusting for all of that, I have his median closer to 28 yards with around a 59% chance to clear 23.5. And this is one where I think the projection may still be a little too conservative because I was pretty careful with each individual adjustment. The path to upside is better than the final 28 yard median projection probably makes it look.