Sean Koerner, our Director of Predictive Analytics, is highlighting his favorite player prop for every slate and primetime game throughout the 2021 NFL season. He has a 412-310-4 (57%) all-time record on NFL bets he’s tracked in the Action app.
Colts-Ravens Prop Bet
Carson Wentz Over 9.5 Rush Yards
Wentz has been playing through injuries to both of his ankles the past two games, which has sapped his rushing ability. In fact, his 0-yard performance in Week 3 snapped a 19-game streak of having at least 1 rush yard. Wentz was able to return to full practice this week for the first time since Week 1. All signs point to him being closer to 100% health for tonight’s game.
Take it from Carson Wentz himself, as reported by JJ Stankevitz of the team's official site:
"I definitely feel much better," Wentz said. "I came out of the [Colts' Week 4 win over the Dolphins] thankfully unscathed. Felt good the next morning and the extra rest here early in the week has definitely helped as well."
That’s why I see a nice “buy low” opportunity on his rushing yard prop tonight, currently at 9.5. Dating back to 2019, Wentz has cleared this number 65.6% of the time.
Let’s take a look at Wentz’s designed rush attempts/scrambles (excluding kneel downs), along with rushing yards for each week this season:
- Week 1 vs. SEA: 3 rush, 23 yards
- Week 2 vs. LAR: 5 rush, 37 yards
- Week 3 @ TEN: 0 rush, 0 yards
- Week 4 @ MIA: 2 rush, 12 yards
Weeks 1-2, Wentz flashed his underrated rushing ability. Then in Week 3, when he was dealing with two injured ankles, he didn’t have a single rushing attempt. Last week, he was likely feeling a bit better and managed to rack up enough yards to clear tonight’s prop. However, he ended up kneeling three times for -4 yards in the victory formation, to finish with 8 yards.
Given the Colts are seven-point underdogs tonight, we don’t need to worry too much about potential kneel downs from Wentz. We also wouldn’t mind a negative game script for Wentz tonight considering eight of his 10 designed rush attempts/scrambles this season have come when the Colts were trailing by three or more points.
In a market like this, it is critical to get the best number. I provided a table below to show how often Wentz has cleared various rush yards over the past three seasons (32 games) to illustrate this.
| Yards | Over % |
|---|---|
| 7.5 | 75% |
| 8.5 | 72% |
| 9.5 | 66% |
| 10.5 | 63% |
| 11.5 | 59% |
| 12.5 | 56% |
| 13.5 | 53% |
| 14.5 | 50% |
| 15.5 | 44% |
Once the market gets up to 11.5 here, I would back off.
Pick: Carson Wentz Over 9.5 Rush Yards (-110) at FanDuel
