4 prop bets we fancy ahead of this year’s NFL Draft

The NFL Draft is a minefield for traders because there are so many moving parts that you never quite know where to lay prices on particular markets.

Just because a player is second-most likely to be taken first overall does not mean they’re most likely to be taken second overall etc. Intel from the internet is also your biggest asset when trying to find gaps here, as there’s always value available when news breaks. You just need to be quick.

Here’s a quick overview of some markets we reckon offer outrageous value ahead of the best sporting administration night on earth.

First Overall Pick: Quinnen Williams – 11/2

Let’s talk about the number one pick and all that comes with it. First of all, you almost always want to try and trade it away because the perceived best player in college to a team is worth way more than it should be.

However, if you’re Arizona and you already spent a first-round pick on a quarterback last year, this is accepting defeat and cutting losses and adding a lot of pointless money to your salary cap.

If you’re stuck with this pick, you either need to see a quarterback of sure-fire All-Pro quality, or you better take the best player available. Kyler Murray is five-foot-ten and nowhere near ready for the NFL. The faux-interest in him was to try and force the hands of a quarterback-desperate team to trade up, but nothing gives.

Now, they must take the best player in the draft in Williams, and despite Nick Bosa’s positional value being trendier at the moment, he hasn’t played a whole lot for Ohio State and has well-recorded injury issues.

This is tremendous value.

First Safety Drafted: Nasir Adderley – 4/1

This is the most open market in the draft and for good reason. There’s every chance six of the first seven players in the market can go first.

Johnathan Abram is the 2/1 favourite, but he’s not a scheme fit for too many teams in the back-end of the first round. The likes of Nasir Adderley and Taylor Rapp are the biggest plug-in options for a few teams and despite the 8/1 about Rapp being tempting, Adderley is the more likely to go here.

We’ve not seen anyone project Darnell Savage going in the first two rounds, so we can exclude him, and there’s no value whatsoever in Abram.

First Wide Receiver Drafted: N’Keal Harry – 20/1

This market is more interesting because evaluations of wide receivers vary more than any other positional group among NFL scouts. Most will have D.K. Metcalf as a freak athlete, but nobody is convinced of his route-running.

Marquise Brown comes with baggage and he may be skipped for that very reason, so you can avoid the poor value of AJ Brown and Hakeem Butler and land on the biggest mismatch available for teams who might want a big-play magnet – N’Keal Harry.

There isn’t too much invested in the standard of school for receivers because their football IQ is probably the worst on the field, so it’s all about athleticism and their ability to make contested catches.

Perhaps if someone like Baltimore realise that they need a big receiver to cover up Lamar Jackson’s shortcomings, they could pull the trigger.

First Cornerback Drafted: De’Andre Baker – 7/2

Corners aren’t drafted by raw ability anymore. They’re drafted by defensive scheme. Some teams never play man coverage and some teams never play zone coverage. New England never play zone (except in the Super Bowl) and the Chargers rarely ever play man.

This eliminates them from certain players, and while Greedy Williams is the best pure man corner, he can’t defend against the run, nor can he operate in zone. Byron Murphy is the best pure zone corner in the draft, but perhaps the best combination of both worlds is De’Andre Baker.

He’s a player whose stock has risen and risen ahead of the draft and so often, this kind of hype makes other teams who locked in Williams or Murphy as their number one player in the secondary start to rethink it.

This is the ideal market to capitalise on this indecision.