The NFL’s Thursday Night Football season opener for Week 1 was always going to be met with much anticipation given it pitted two bitter NFC East rivals in the Dallas Cowboys against the Philadelphia Eagles. However, the game reached an all new level of intrigue when Dallas failed to reach a contract agreement with Micah Parsons, and traded him to the Green Bay Packers just weeks before the season started.
This game has one of the highest totals (O/U 47.5) of any on the Week 1 slate, which means there should be plenty of opportunities to cash some touchdown scorer prop bets.
Let’s dive into our top NFL Thursday Night Football Week 1 touchdown scorer props for tonight’s game.
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NFL Thursday Night Football Touchdown Scorers Props & Bets
(Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook)
Either Jalen Hurts or Saquon Barkley to score the first touchdown (+160)
Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley have -900 odds (carrying a 90% implied probability) for either of them to score a touchdown at any point. Therefore, their 38.46% implied probability based on FanDuel’s +160 odds that either would score the first touchdown of the game is great value in comparison.
The Eagles are 7.5-point favorites, and are an even more confident play to win outright after the Micah Parsons drama unfolded. That makes Philadelphia a great bet to get on the board first, and backing Hurts or Barkley gives us a variety of ways that can happen, from a short-yardage “tush push” or one of Barkley’s patented big gainers (13% of his rushes last year went for at least 10 yards).
A.J. Brown Anytime Touchdown Scorer (+165)
A wager on A.J. Brown to score an anytime touchdown is a bit of a hedge on our first wager in case the Eagles, a team that threw the ball the least of any team last year, airs it out more than usual.
Despite Philadelphia relying on a ground-and-pound approach more often than not last year, Brown still finished as a top-20 fantasy wide receiver. His quarterback is coming off a season where he had a 3.6:1 TD:INT ratio after a 2.0 TD:INT ratio over his first four seasons, and the Cowboys defense ranked 29th in Total QBR allowed last season.
The Cowboys also allowed a whopping 25 rushing touchdowns, their most allowed in a season in franchise history, and their 4.8 yards per rush allowed ranked 30th. So even though that lends itself more to Hurts or Barkley scoring, these are great odds for Philadelphia’s best wide receiver to find the endzone as well.
George Pickens Anytime Touchdown Scorer (+220)
CeeDee Lamb was likely the happiest person outside of Dak Prescott at the addition of former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver George Pickens to the roster. Lamb is still likely to receive the bulk of the opposing defense’s attention in the passing game, but this could be a sneaky situation where there is an instant connection between Prescott and Pickens in their first regular season game together.
Prescott led the NFL in passing touchdowns in his last full season played in 2023, while Lamb and Pickens are one of two current wide receiver tandems each with 2,000 receiving yards in that span. Thus, it is absolutely worth taking a flier on Pickens to score a touchdown in his first game with the Cowboys, and his +220 odds are more appealing than Lamb’s +140 anytime touchdown odds.
Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.