NFL Future Player Props Review: 2022-2023 Season
I’m big into accountability and nobody holds me more accountable than myself, that’s one of the reason why there is no comment section. This is why I have these review articles, for full transparency. The future props are risky because many things can derail the prop, most notably injuries. To give you some perspective, 64 different QB’s started this year. This is the second time it’s happened in a non-strike season, according to CBS. The Cardinals and the Rams lead the way with starting 4 different Qb’s. If you play on apps such as Prize Picks, a player going down like Javonte Williams, you would get your tickets refunded if you had played him on a 2 leg ticket.
Qb play was top heavy and down, overall scoring was down with only a few games from the entire season that went over, coaching turmoils and a slew of injuries led to an underwhelming season. In fact, most of the player props that failed in season weekly, failed due to injuries. Lots of lessons to take away from this season that we can apply next year to be more successful. Hopefully you didn’t play many parlays and picked the ones that hit individually, as the overall total results were bad. The analysis was there on the missed calls, they just didn’t work out. Find out why below.
RUSHING TD’s
Jonathan Taylor (IND-RB) - UNDER 13.5 rushing TD’s - HIT (4 rush Td’s) - He had 11 last year. I said I personally wouldn’t play it but if you did it paid off. He got injured and the team was in disarray from top to bottom all season long. That’s another issue with playing future props, the risk of injury and eventual shutdown for the season.
Najee Harris (PIT-RB) – OVER 7.5 rushing TD’s - MISS (7 rush td’s). Najee looked great especially closer to the end of the season. He looks much leaner and confident. The team went through a quarterback change technically twice in one year. Ben Roethlisberger retired last year and they started the season with Mitch Trubisky. After 3 weeks Mitch was benched for rookie Kenny Pickett. The offense went through growing pains pretty much the whole season as Kenny learned on the job. The play calling was also finding it’s rythm with the addition of George Pickens and it led to Chase Claypool being traded. Despite all this and Najee missing the touchdown total, he was still able to do really well. (He actually had a touchdown called back the last game of the season.)
Derrick Henry (TEN–RB) - OVER 9 rush TD’s - HIT (13 rush Td’s) I was concerned about his injury first and foremost, but I was also concerned about his offensive line changes. I said I personally wouldn’t touch it but if you did it worked out. Credit to Henry who actually had 601 and more rushing yards and 3 more td’s this year than 2021, but it took him a whopping 349 attempts to do it. That’s 130 more attempts than last year. The last time he had more than 350 attempts was back in 2020, when he finished with 2,027 rush yds and 17 td’s. He was still great and surpassed my expectations but when you watch him play he’s clearly slowing down. His injury combined with his 1,750 rush attempts in his 7 year career, have to be really taken into consideration next year in fantasy drafts.
Javonte Williams (DEN-RB) - OVER 7.5 rushing TD’s. MISS (0) - I love everything about this player and I loved the prop. Oh boy was this going to be an easy one to go over, but Nathaneil Hackett, with a fitting descriptive last name, for what he did this year as first time head coach. Javonte Williams unfortunately experienced the same fate as Jonathan Taylor and his season was cut very short due to injury, an injury that I believe occurred due to the fact that he was overcompensating every time he touched the ball because first time coach Nathaniel Hackett was clearly out of his element coaching the Broncos this year. The horrible rotation led to an injury, which led to an incredible amount of fumbles from Melvin Gordon, which led to him getting benched and ultimately he was let go from the disasterous team. After Javonte gets injured the rotation got even more crowded and confusing. The Broncos went out and signed running back journeymen Latavius Murray to handle the bulk of the work for the entirety of the season. Latavius Murray got 6 tds and he didn’t get there until week 4 so if there was some semblance of management and coaching and Javonte stayed healthy, he would have easily gone over this number. I look forward to him returning to the field.
Joe Mixon (CIN-RB) – OVER 9 rushing TD’s MISS (7 rush Td’s) - He missed a few games with injury, but that’s to be expected when you are predicting future season production, but overall Joe mixon was a bit underwhelming this year. He was very up and down. When Samajee Perine played he actually gave the bengals a bit more juice. I believe he was even benched week 13 against the Chiefs but the coaching staff claimed it was due to the concussion protocol.
Nick Chubb (CLE-RB) – OVER 7.5 TD’s – HIT (12 rush Td’s) He hit the prop by week 8. The public consistently underrates Nick Chubb and his abilities but we won’t. We will continue to take advantage when we see low numbers for great players.
Total: 3-3 (50%)
QUARTERBACKS
Justin Herbert (LAC) - OVER 35.5 TD’s - MISS (25 PASS TD’s), OVER 4700 pass yds - HIT (4739 pass yds) This teaam got hit with the injury bug hard and it spread through the whole locker room. Herbert got hurt early in the beginning of the season but played through the fractured rib cartilage. The whole team got beat up with injuries on defense and offense. At one point Herbert was palying with his third string center, he lost his left tackle and his top two receivers Keenan Allen and Mike Williams weren’t on the field together more than 8 games all season since Keenan Allen went down week 1 and Mike Willimas suffered an ankle sprain mid season that kept him out an extended period of time.
Matthew Stafford (LAR) - UNDER 36.5 passing TD’s - HIT (10 pass TD’s) The Rams suffered a major Super Bowl hangover. Stafford was dealing with back isseus and a concussion. It was clear after the Rams looked awful on both sides of the ball and their only weapon in Copper Kupp being put on IR, that eventually Stafford would be shut down as well.
Josh Allen (BUF) - UNDER 35.5 passing TD’s - HIT (35 TD’s)
Derek Carr (LV) – OVER 29.5 passing TD’s - MISS (24 pass TD’s) , OVER 4500 passing yards - MISS (3522 pass yds) - How someone who led a team to the playoffs last year when the team was in complete shambles and a lot less at his disposal, most notably leadership, gets benched the last two games of the season and most likely will be let go is beyond me. He is clearly being used as a scapegoat for a horrendous first year season by second time head coach Josh McDaniels. If McDaniels created a system around his players instead of forcing them into his car might have easily hit this especially with addition of devante Adams, Carr was also without Darren Waller and Renfrow for at least half the season.
Matt Ryan (IND) – OVER 24.5 passing TD’s - MISS (14 pass TD’s) , OVER 3900 - MISS (3057 pass yds) - As I said earlier, the Colts were in complete disarray. Frank Reich was fired, Jonathan Taylor got injured and Matt Ryan was benched, then re-instated when Jeff Saturday was hired. Matt Ryan was on pace to go over 3900 pass yds by over 650 yds. So there was room for some down games. He was not on pace to hit his passing td’s. He needed to throw on average of 2 tds’s a game had he played the full season
Kirk Cousins (MIN) – OVER 4200 - HIT (4547 passing yds)
Tom Brady (TB) – UNDER 4750 passing yards – HIT (4694 pass yds) Brady threw for 147 more yards than Kirk but it took him 90 more attempts to get that estra 147 yards. 2 0ffensive lineman out, may not get Godwin back at the start of the year, and Rob Gronkowski, announced his retirement. All these things that were part of the analysis pretty much came true.
Total: 5-5 (50%)
RUSHING YARDS
Derrick Henry (TEN-RB) – UNDER 1450.5 rushing yards - MISS (1538 rush yds) As I stated above, he had a much better season this year coming off an injury than he did last year. I will be cautious moving forward. Coming up on his 8th season and shwoing signs of slowing down.
Jonathan Taylor (IND-RB) – OVER 1400.5 rushing yards - MISS (861 rush yds) - The team was in shahmbles, poorly coached and miss managed. Got injured and shut down for the rest of season
Najee Harris (PIT-RB) – OVER 1150.5 rush yards - MISS (1,038 ruh yds) See above.
Joe Mixon (CIN-RB) – OVER 1050 rushing yards - MISS (814 rush yds) - He was very up and down this year.
Javonte Williams (DEN-RB) - OVER 950.5 rushing yards - MISS (950 rush yds) He got injured early on in the season.
David Montgomery (CHI-RB) - UNDER 900.5 rushing yards - MISS (801 rush yds) – The emergence of Justin Fields chipped away a bit at David’s production. Even though a mobile quarterback usually helps the running game, with the lack of quality recievers, defenses forced Justin to try and throw but he tucked it and ran it himslef.
Josh Jacobs (LV-RB) - OVER 750.5 rushing yards - HIT (1,653 rush yds) - This is my pride and joy of the season. I was all in on him from props to Bestball and redraft leagues. People how know me prior know I was touting him since the season ended last year. Knew it was a contract year and loved it when his stock fell because he played in the Hall of Fame game. He hit this number by week 9. I have always been a supporter. I never budged or got scared off him or the projected production.
Antonio Gibson (WAS-RB) – UNDER 974.5 rushing yards - HIT (546 rush yds) The analysis was spot on here. His indecision and and fumbling continued to be an issue and Brian Robinson emerged as the clear cut running back even after getting shot when someone tried to car jack him.
Elijah Mitchell (SF-RB) – 925 rushing yards - HIT (279 rush yds) Mitchell got injured but this was still a high number for someone who was sharing the ball with not only Jeff Wilson, bur Deebo Samuel is also part of the run game.
Devin Singletary (BUF-RB)- OVER 700 rushing yards - HIT (819 rush yds) - The acquisition of run blocker Rodger Saffold from the Titans and Mitch Morse, a run blocking center was a tell the Bills wanted to run more and run they did.
Total: 4-6 (40%)