Nearly every day, the HOFBets team receives questions on the best ways to use our powerful software to find the best NFL player props and parlays. Today, we will go through and give you a foolproof process that our team uses daily to find the best plays.
Throughout this article, I will highlight particular parts of our platform that are essential to this process and how I use it to get an advantage in my betting game.
Overview
Don’t have all the time in the world to stay up to date on everything NFL? Neither do I! Whether or not you are a die-hard NFL fan that watches every single-game and devours box scores or someone who watches one game a season, being informed is paramount to being successful betting on football.
Luckily, the HOFBets App can help you bridge the gap between all of the data and what you need to know, using the Leaders page.
Opening the app to Leaders will bring you just what you need, consolidated and customizable insights for all the players in the league. Want to see who are the best receivers in the league? We got you.
Maybe you’re looking for running backs? Here are the rushing leaders in the league.
Using filters like this and a few other tips and tricks, I am able to find a list of plays that I love each and every day.
To break down my process into a series of steps:
- Using the Leaders page on the HOFBets app, research player props that are trending well and could have potential value
- Examine the same lines on the Stats page to validate if there are any other factors I should be considering
- Utilizing the Parlay Optimizer check how these lines perform in conjunction with each other see if it makes sense to play any together
- Go to my sportsbook app and plug in what I like the most.
Researching NFL Player Props on Leaders
NFL can be a tricky sport when it comes to betting, but a fun one when you do it right. Each type of player prop can have its own factors to consider, so I will break down the two I look at the most:
- Receiving Props
- Rushing Props
Researching Receivers
Starting off with the receivers, the things I am most interested in are year-long performance, recent performance, and team matchup. The best thing is, you can look at all three of those on one screen. Let’s go back to our receiving leaders listed earlier, but this time, let’s look at the last 5 games.
If there are familiar names between the season-long performance and recent performance, that should be a great sign: this player has been great all season and they have been streaking well lately. Comparing those two images, I would consider these few players the most:
- CeeDee Lamb
- AJ Brown
- Puka Nacua
Lamb is present on both lists and notably has a great matchup. Nacua is a tricky one, as he was not immediately on the second list, but looking further, he was ranked 27, so he still is in great company plus he has a fantastic matchup grade of B+.
However, for Brown, we have one issue: he has a matchup grade of D, indicating that he is facing an incredibly tough matchup this week.
Therefore, I would drop Brown and dive in and do some research on each of those two players to see if they should make the final cut.
Researching Rushers
Moving on to rushers, the process would be similar, but with some tweaks. I am a fan of taking alternate lines for running backs as they oftentimes have more value than where their over/under prop is set at, or considering their potential as a pass catcher. A good place to start is looking at the 40/50 rushing yard mark as this will be where many players have their line set and considering their performances against this line can be helpful. When researching rushers, first make sure to switch over to the Rushers tab to see only rushing stats. Let’s look at how rushers have performed this season for 50+ yards.
Immediately you can see there are some running backs who hit this line nearly every game! From this list, I would look at a few players, such as:
- David Montgomery
- Saquon Barkley
- Travis Etienne
- Christian McCaffrey
When I am looking at running backs, the things I put the most value towards are: their season-long performance, who they are playing, and what alt-lines are available.
The first two of those things we can check just on this page, and the last is something helpful to look at on the Stats page.
For our first player, we have Montgomery with a fantastic hit rate, facing off against a team with a poor rushing defense. Let’s pencil him in, but see if there is more to look at.
Barkley and Etienne both have great hit rates, but have poor matchups against strong rushing defenses. These would be lines I would consider adding in, but may potentially avoid due to this.
McCaffrey is an interesting one, as he has a great hit rate and a decent matchup, but his odds for this line are considerably low. This would be a great one to look at with more detail to see if we can get value at a higher line.
From here, we head over to Stats to look at what else each of these players has going on.
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Breaking Down Player Props in Stats
Starting off with our receivers, looking at their stats page can provide you with more details, particularly if you want to explore particular options for an alternate line. For instance, looking at CeeDee Lamb, we see that his recording 60+ receiving yards has implied odds of -233 on the season, meaning getting this bet at -1000 on DraftKings does not give us any edge.
However, if we explore his alternate lines we can see that we start finding positive edge plays past 100 yards, especially if we are looking at his recent performances. For example, if we took him at 110+ yards and looked at his performances over the last five games, we would have a great edge from the book odds of +170 to his implied odds of -400. For now, let’s go ahead and this line to our betslip.
We would have a similar process for the rest of our receivers, sometimes considering playing players up and sometimes making the wise betting choice and playing them down. For now, let’s move on to rushers to explore how their process may change. Starting off with David Montgomery, we have fantastic options – Montgomery has a great matchup against the 28th-ranked rushing defense and likewise has a great edge against many of his lines. At 60+ rushing yards, he has an 86% hit rate on the year, giving him implied odds of -600 compared to his book odds of -190 at this line.
As we have already decided on taking a riskier play for Lamb, let’s go ahead and take Montgomery at this lower line to reduce the total risk of our play. Now, let’s move on to one of the more interesting players in the league, Christian McCaffrey. Going through his alternate rushing lines, we see that there are no positive edge plays, but luckily, CMC is much more than a running back, he is also an elite pass catcher. Looking at his performances on the season, we can see that he has incredible value on his receiving yards, particularly recently. For instance, his line for 25+ yards is set at -225, but over the past five games he has hit this line with implied odds of -400.
Now that we have found some great value plays, let’s look at how these all perform together in the Parlay Optimizer.
Considering Different NFL Parlays and Plays using the Parlay Optimizer
Now comes the exciting part: we have found good value bets that we believe should play well. After adding everything to our betting slip, we can head over to the Parlay Optimizer to see if there is a strong parlay we could consider placing. When I am at this stage, I like to check to see how the parlay has performed all year, recently, and with other factors such as including home/away filters. Looking at the entire season, we can see that our parlay has implied odds of +233, which is fantastic value given that on DraftKings this is being offered for +506.
However, it is important to check other factors that could be at play. One of the key ones I consider is how they have performed recently. Filtering this same parlay over the last three games, we see that it has implied odds of -200. Now that is great value! With this information in mind, we can head to the most entertaining step of them all.
Placing your Picks
Head to your sportsbook of choice and add in whatever picks you settle on. Whether you decide to take the whole parlay or break up individual plays or different combinations, you can rest easy knowing that you are placing high-value, well-researched bets. With long-term strategies like these, you can expect more success and see your profit grow.
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All odds in this article are from DraftKings Sportsbook and FanDuel Sportsbook.
