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Matthew Freedman’s 2022 NFL Season-Long Player Projections & Props Bets

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If there’s one thing in this life that I’m good at — other than eating waffles and … checks job description … directing content — it’s betting props.

I’m not claiming to be a great bettor. I’m not.

But I have been consistently profitable for years betting on props. During the season, I aggressively bet NFL (and sometimes NBA) player props. In the postseason, I’ve experimented with NHL player props (despite knowing little about the sport) and had notable success. For March Madness, I’ve created player projections for every team and leveraged them effectively for the past three tournaments.

And of course there’s the NFL draft, which I’ve bet on for years and is my offseason bread and butter, and I say that as someone who loves bread and butter more than my doctor thinks is good for me.

Add season-long NFL player props to the list. I’ve bet them profitably for years.

This year, though, the market is different. Hence, this article.

Check out our NFL Futures Betting Guide >>

Season-Long NFL Player Props

I’m a realist — but in a world that tends to be too optimistic I look a lot like a pessimist. That’s fine. If not for wet blankets, the world would burn.

As long as I’ve bet season-long NFL player props, I’ve bet unders. Not exclusively, but supermajoritively.

Is “supermajoritively” an actual word?

It is now.

Well over two-thirds of my season-long player prop bets have been unders. It’s probably closer to nine-tenths. Why? Because I hate having fun, and I love winning money. And betting unders has been like owning a federal mint for at least the last half decade.

In 2017, 71.2% of season-long player props went under, and that wasn’t an aberration.

Last year, 66.7% of season-long props went under.

Why have sportsbooks been so bad at pricing season-long player production?

Generally, books haven’t cared all that much about trying to be accurate in this market. They’ve set relatively low limits, adjusted lines and odds based on action and viewed season-long player props as a loss leader, basically as a form of marketing.

And specifically they’ve underestimated the probabilities and impacts of injuries.

Plus, they’ve catered to the whims of casual sports bettors, who tend to like overs.

This year, however, the books seem to have gotten wise.

How to Bet 2022 Season-Long NFL Player Props

In previous years, I’ve been able to look at a sharp set of season-long projections and see an entire portfolio of bettable under opportunities. Not this year.

In 2022, sharp projection sets are universally on the over on almost every season-long prop in the market.

When I first saw this I was shocked, so much so that I actually took the non-lazy step of creating my own projections, just so I could verify what I saw.

Yep, verified.

It’s as if this offseason the books created their lines, chopped 10-20% off and then released them to the public, knowing that the “under narrative” is now widespread.

As a result, there are far fewer under options this year … but I’m still skeptical about betting overs, for a few reasons.

  1. Over the past five years, I’ve become accustomed to betting season-long unders. This dog doesn’t like learning new tricks.
  2. For an over to hit, everything needs to go according to plan — or even better than expected. But if anything goes wrong — even just one thing — the under is likely to cash.
  3. Depending on when you bet season-long props, the sportsbooks will hold your money for 5-6 months. That’s a significant amount of time that carries with it a real opportunity cost. If you want to fade a player, it’s fine to bet his season-long unders — especially when unders have been so friendly — because the under is pretty much the only way to bet against him. But if you want to invest in a player, there are more season-long markets for doing so (such as the markets to lead the league in passing or to win MVP), all of which offer more upside than the standard season-long prop market. And given how long the books hold your money, it probably makes sense to seek more upside. I mean, is it really all that great to be bullish enough on a player to bet $115 on him at -115 odds, let the book hold your money for an entire season and then at the end of it get back your original $115 plus an extra $100 for being right? Nah, that doesn’t sound too good to me. If I think a guy will have a profitable season, I’d rather bet $100 on him to win MVP at +8000 odds and get $8,000 at the end of the campaign. That’s just the way I roll.

So I’m still looking to bet unders in the season-long prop market, but I’ll be less active this year than I’ve previously been. And I might have a few overs — because I’m a degenerate who can’t help himself — but for the most part I’ll go into the player futures market for my bullish bets.

2022 Season-Long NFL Player Projections

Since I went through the effort of creating player projections, I figured that I might as well publish them on the site and highlight the season-long prop bets I like.

Some notes/disclaimers.

  • My projections are not the official BettingPros or FantasyPros projections, which are entirely independent from mine. These are just my pseudo-random projections. For the official BettingPros projections, see our season-long prop bet cheat sheet, which compares our projections with the current lines in the market to highlight the props that offer the most value. It’s a great tool. For the official FantasyPros projections, check out our season-long consensus projections page, which provides statistical forecasts for almost every skill-position player in the league.
  • My projections are solely to help me — and now you — navigate the season-long prop market. That’s it. I wouldn’t use them for making draft decisions in fantasy football, where it makes more sense to focus on upside than median outcome. For the prop market, though, the median is what matters most.
  • With the prop market in mind, I know that I don’t need these projections to be perfect, so I haven’t tried to make them perfect. I just need them to be good enough to be directionally correct. In other words, I won’t be obsessively updating these projections every day.
  • The season-long prop market is not overwhelmingly robust. You can find hundreds of wagers to make, but very few of them are for players who aren’t relevant in fantasy. You won’t find props for No. 2 quarterbacks, most No. 2 running backs, many Nos. 2-3 wide receivers and even some No. 1 tight ends. As a result, I don’t care much about being accurate with those players. I’m not ignoring their projections, but I’m also not investing extra time into working out the nuances of their projections. That would be a -EV (expected value) use of my time, especially since I can’t bet into any market to profit from my work.

With that out of the way, here are the links to my 2022 season-long player projections and prop bets.

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  • 2022 Season-Long Player Props: Best Bets (Out Soon)

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