2020 NFL Draft Prop Bets: Who Will Be Drafted Higher Justin Herbert or Jordan Love?
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As the month of April approaches, the NFL calendar turns to the NFL Draft with this year’s (altered) festivities now inside of a month away. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the draft will be shifted to a video conferencing format and all players will remain at home while team staffs will follow a similar protocol.
From a betting perspective, the outbreak has closed a lot of doors as far as spring sports betting his concerned, with one exception; the NFL Draft. While there’s always a plethora of props for sports bettors to get down on when it comes to the draft, this year’s affair has even more than usual as it’s the only thing going when it comes to the four major sports in this country.
Also even more so than most years, this year’s draft has an abundance of quarterback options with as many as four having the potential to go in the first round.
In today’s piece, let’s take a look at a prop that pits two of those quarterbacks against one another, offering odds on which one will go first. This prop is posted by our good friends over at PointsBet and is available for betting for bettors residing in New Jersey.
And you can view all of our 2020 NFL Draft Prop Bets here.
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Justin Herbert (-371) vs. Jordan Love (+265)
Oh, how much can change in just a year.
At the end of the 2018 college football season, Justin Herbert was widely speculated to be the #1 pick in the following April’s should’ve he had forgone his senior season at Oregon and declared for it. His choice to return, however, might have cost him money, but it’s interesting to ponder he might now have a better shot of being drafted by a sooner-to-be contender.
Throwing 3,471 yards, 32 touchdowns, and six interceptions (also ran for four), it’s not like Herbert had a terrible senior campaign. A slow start, however, paired with the emergence of Joe Burrow (LSU) and the sustained success of Tua Tagovailoa (Alabama), means Herbert will at the earliest be the third quarterback taken in the 2020 NFL Draft.
For Utah State product Jordan Love, the year over year comparison is similar. Unlike Herbert, Love had no choice but to return for another season as he was just a sophomore when he turned in his most stellar season as an Aggie. In 2018, Love threw for 3,567 yards to go along with 32 touchdowns and just six interceptions.
Many have speculated, me being one of them, that 2018 numbers were more of an outlier than the norm. 2018 was the final season at Utah State of offensive-minded head coach Matt Wells, who darted for greener pastures in Texas Tech the following summer. When Love returned in the fall of 2019, the magic dissipated, as he completed just 62% of his passes and went for 3,402 yards, 20 touchdowns, and 17 interceptions.
If Love were to get drafted in the first round, it will be because some team out there loves his skill set and are willing to take a risk on a kid that also has the physical build (6’4″/224lbs) for the NFL on day one. Make no doubt about it though, Love is as much of a project as any in this draft and will need to find the right situation and early to succeed at the next level.
As much as I would love to take the underdog in spot laying a ton of juice, the value remains on the more complete product in Herbert going well before Love is taken off the board later this month.
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Pick: Herbert -371
TJ Perun is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from TJ, check out his archive and follow him @JohnnyCovers.