In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by BetMGM:
It's now April, which is when the NFL Draft prop market really starts heating up.
The market isn't an all-knowing entity, but it is an informed source of data whose participants have actual skin in the game in that they're willing to put their money where their mouths are.
It's one thing for a bunch of draftniks and expert mockers to say that a team is likely to take a particular player. It's another thing altogether for a slew of bettors to back that opinion with their investments.
To be clear, I'm not saying that one is better than the other, and neither is by no means perfect: Mocks are useful, the market is useful, and both are (unfortunately) fallible.
What I'm saying is that they're different and thus complementary, and just as we survey a lot of mocks in order to get a sense of what might be likely to happen in the draft, we can also peruse the market.
With that in mind, and given that every Saturday edition of the Fantasy Life Newsletter is dedicated to the NFL Draft, here are the things that stand out to me the most when I look at the prop market right now.
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The Top Five
Sportsbooks add "juice" to bets in order to make money, so the market odds of any given prop don't 100% reflect the books' opinion on the probability of that thing happening—but the odds at least put us in the right direction, which means that we can use our Fantasy Life Odds Calculator to get a general percentage probability of specific events happening in the draft.
As an example, here's what DraftKings currently "predicts" the top five of the draft will look like.
- No. 1: QB Cam Ward (95.2% probability)
- No. 2: EDGE Abdul Carter (71.4%)
- No. 3: WR/CB Travis Hunter (69.2%)
- No. 4: Either OT Will Campbell (28.6%) or OT Armand Membou (26.7%)
- No. 5: DT Mason Graham (60%)
You'll notice that one player is conspicuously absent …
A Fall for QB Shedeur Sanders
Just a few weeks ago, it was widely believed that Sanders would be a top-5 pick and quickly selected after Ward, most likely by either the Browns or Giants.
But his draft position over/under at Caesars is 3.5, and the juice is heavily to the over.
- Over 3.5: -400
- Under 3.5: +310
In case you don't know, "-400" means that a bettor must wager $400 to win $100; "+310," $100 to win $310. Translation: The market is strongly NOT expecting the Titans, Browns, or Giants to select Sanders.
So, where might he land, if not those teams?
At FanDuel, the most likely teams currently without a top-3 pick to draft Sanders are these.
- Saints (No. 9): 17.9%
- Steelers (No. 21): 10%
- Jets (No. 7): 10%
- Raiders (No. 6): 4.2%
- Rams (No. 26): 3.5%
In my most recent mock, I still have Sanders going No. 2 overall … because even if the team did swing a trade with the Falcons for QB Kirk Cousins, they would still need a QB of the future, they are in the rare position to be able to acquire one near the top of the draft, and HC Kevin Stefanski has been highly complimentary of Sanders.
One of my favorite draft props is Sanders to the Browns at No. 2.
For all my NFL draft props, see our free Fantasy Life bet tracker, which I update regularly.
But I could very well be wrong, and the market has moved against me.
As of now, the market is saying that Sanders will slide out of the top five, and if he does, there's no telling where his fall will end.
Perhaps all the way to the Rams at No. 26.
FULLY UPDATED ROUND 1 MOCK DRAFT
Skill-Position Ranks
Thor Nystrom, our Fantasy Life college football and NFL draft guru, has rankings for all the skill-position players.
You should definitely check them out.
The market also has de facto rankings in that many players have draft position over/unders, and books also post props on who will be selected No. 1 within various position groups.
Using those bets as a guide, one can determine how the market essentially "ranks" skill-position players within their groups.
QB: Cam Ward, Shedeur Sanders, Jaxson Dart
RB: Ashton Jeanty, Omarion Hampton, TreVeyon Henderson, Quinshon Judkins, Kaleb Johnson
WR: Travis Hunter, Tetairoa McMillan, Matthew Golden, Emeka Egbuka, Luther Burden
TE: Tyler Warren, Colston Loveland, Elijah Arroyo, Harold Fannin, Terrance Ferguson, Mason Taylor
I gotta say: When I look at the rankings "predicted" by the market, they generally strike me as accurate. You can quibble about TE rankings all you want after Colston Loveland, but I think the market's implied QB, RB, and WR rankings are spot on.
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