Will Kenyan Drake Go Over/Under 1000.5 Rushing Yards? (2020 NFL Player Prop Bets)
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NFL player props tend to be based on how well a player performed the season before. Normally, these props look at the season as a whole, but in some cases, we see a player who surged late in the season ride that momentum into the offseason. Vegas knows bettors are expecting them to continue their hot finish when Week 1 of the following season kicks off, which lets oddsmakers set a number much higher than the player’s actual total from the season before.
DraftKings currently has an interesting prop on their website for a player who did almost nothing the first half of 2019 but turned it on late when he found a new home Arizona. We’re going to take a look at Kenyan Drake’s rushing total projection. The prop has dropped by 50 yards since it opened, but is the movement warranted?
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Will Kenyan Drake Go Over/Under 1000.5 Rushing Yards?
Drake spent the first three seasons of his career in Miami and never once came close to touching 1,000 yards on the ground. His best season saw him rush for 644, but a lot of bettors are blaming that on the fact that he was on the struggling Dolphins. Just take a look at his numbers from last season. In six games with the Dolphins, Drake rushed for only 174 yards on 47 carries. Production doesn’t get much worse than that for a running back that many expected to be the number one back in Miami.
But then halfway through the season, he was sent to Arizona where his talent really started to shine. In eight games, Drake rushed for 643 yards and eight touchdowns. In weeks 15 and 16 of last season, he rushed 46 times for a combined 303 yards and six touchdowns. That was nearly double his production in Miami over the course of six weeks.
Yet, there are still questions surrounding Drake this season. The Cardinals made one of the biggest offseason moves when they brought in DeAndre Hopkins to work with an already loaded wide receiver corps that includes Larry Fitzgerald and Christian Kirk. Will this take away from Drake’s carries?
The truth is, it could go either way. If the passing game is clicking then the Cardinals may actually lead in some games paving the way for Drake to get more carries. A huge problem for Drake is that he’s been on bad teams throughout his career. Last season the Cardinals won just five games. Weeks 15 and 16 were two of those five, which was a key reason why Drake saw his production elevated.
However, if the passing game isn’t clicking then the Cardinals are going to be trailing more often than not and will likely find themselves struggling to find a consistent rushing attack. And then there is the question of what if the games are close? Will Kingsbury be looking to put the ball in Drake’s hands or in second-year star quarterback Kyler Murray’s? Knowing Kingsbury and his coaching philosophy, the answer is obvious.
In total last season, Drake rushed for 817 yards in just 14 games which makes it seem that going over 1,000 yards is well within reach. But over a third of his yards came in just two games last year, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that he wasn’t required to take a lot of carries early in the season. As defenses were starting to wind down, Drake was fresh and ready to punish them for stepping in front of him. A full 16 game season with the expectation of being a workhorse could work against Drake.
On top of that, he will probably be heavily utilized in the passing game for underneath routes as the receivers work against secondaries down the field. We saw a similar thing happen last season to Saquon Barkley who was unable to get much going against rush defenses but was used quite a bit in the passing game. In the end, he went for just 1,003 yards in 13 games. Drake will likely follow a similar path, but even after a solid end to last season, he isn’t half the running back that Barkley is. Considering Drake has shown no signs of coming close to 1,000 yards in a season, 2020 with a pass-heavy offense will likely not be the time we see him pull it off.
The Pick: Kenyan Drake under 1000.5 yards (-110)
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Phil Wood is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Phil, check out his archive and follow him @Phil_Wood_Jr.