Jets vs Browns Player Prop: Expert Bet on Elijah Moore
WR Elijah Moore
Over 31.5 Receiving Yards (-110)
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Joe Flacco has at least 300 passing yards in three straight games, but Elijah Moore hasn’t benefited much from the increase in passing volume as his receiving lines have been 3/42/0, 2/17/0 and 2/19/0.
However, since Flacco took over as the team’s starter in Week 13, Moore has seen 410 air yards of targets, which is the ninth most in the NFL over the last four weeks. It hasn’t translated into as much production as we would expect, but Moore is getting plenty of looks, especially downfield.
Moore has two drops in that span, which have robbed him of production, but he’s never had drop issues in his career considering he only had five in two-plus years heading into Week 13. I don’t expect his 13% drop rate to continue.
Moore is a very underrated route runner and it’s encouraging to see him getting more downfield looks (average depth of target of 16.4) with Flacco under center. Moore isn’t some Jamison Crowder kind of slot receiver. Instead, he's more than capable of winning downfield and has Tyler Lockett-like upside if the Browns continue to use him this way.
The Jets secondary is very good and not one we necessarily want to attack often. But we can expect Moore to line up 30-40% of the time tonight in the slot, where he can avoid Sauce Gardner and D.J. Reed outside coverage. The Jets have allowed 13.0 yards per attempt on targets 15+ yards downfield from the slot, which is right around league average. One of those targets could get us more than halfway to hitting this prop tonight.
Moore also has the #RevengeGame narrative going for him since he started his career with the Jets and had sort of an ugly exit. Flacco is in a similar situation as the QB/WR pair were also teammates in New York, so it can't hurt that the duo may be looking to stick it to their former team.
The other reason I like Moore's over, and why I want to invest in this as soon as possible, is the fact that Amari Cooper appears to be shaping up as a true game-time decision with a heel injury. I’m expecting Cooper will play tonight and be pretty close to 100%, but there's a non-zero chance that he ends up getting ruled out tonight (let’s say 5% chance) or he could be active and play at less than 100%, being more of a decoy on some of his routes (let’s say a 10% chance that’s his role tonight) with an 85% chance that he is active and his usual self.
Just having that 5-15% chance of Elijah Moore having a bigger role and seeing some targets that otherwise would likely have gone to a healthy Cooper gives us some sneaky upside in this market right now.
I doubt his prop will dip below 30 if/when Cooper is announced active and good to go, so this feels as low as Moore’s yardage total will likely get. If Cooper is ruled out, we could see this prop get to the low 40s.
I’m projecting his median closer to 38.5 right now and like investing in his upside in what is a more complete role for him (including more downfield shots). He’s the perfect type of receiver to buy low on.
