What's primetime football without a little same-game parlay sweat?
Action Network NFL experts Sean Koerner, Nick Giffen, and Gilles Gallant cooked up a juicy NFL parlay for tonight's Thursday Night Football game between the Broncos and Chargers.
Be sure to subscribe to the Action Network YouTube channel, where our experts give out their picks on Action Island each week. If you missed this week's show, you can read about their picks below.
Broncos vs. Chargers Thursday Night Football Parlay
- Quentin Johnston Under 3.5 Receptions
- Josh Palmer Over 29.5 Receiving Yards
- Devaughn Vele Over 32.5 Receiving Yards
Parlay Odds: +454 (FanDuel)
Quentin Johnston Under 3.5 Receptions
Nick Giffen: Patrick Surtain II will be blanketing Quentin Johnston on most snaps when Ladd McConkey is playing in the slot, which he does on 70% of his snaps.
The Broncos are second in the NFL in pressure rate, and Johnston is targeted on just 7.5% of routes when Justin Herbert is under pressure. Denver also blitzes at the fifth-highest rate in the league; McConkey's target rate jumps 10.7% when Herbert is blitzed vs. not blitzed while Johnston's target rate drops 6.7%.
CB Riley Moss, who typically lines up opposite Surtain, is out as well, which could open up more targets for Josh Palmer or other ancillary wide receiver options when Surtain is on Johnston.
Josh Palmer Over 29.5 Receiving Yards
Gilles Gallant: Josh Palmer has cleared this number in eight of 13 games this season.
Palmer excels vs. Man defenses, so this should be a spot where he can continue to cook. And as Nick mentioned above, with Surtain likely on Johnston and Moss out for Thursday night, options could be aplenty for players like Palmer.
Back Palmer to exceed his receiving yards total Thursday.
Devaughn Vele Over 32.5 Receiving Yards
Sean Koerner:This is a good buy-low opportunity on Vele coming off a brutal two-game stretch of 1/16/0 (Browns) and 0/0/0 (Colts).
The Browns matchup was a brutal one for him considering how often they use Man coverage, and last week against the Colts was played in heavy winds and was a blowout in which the Broncos offense didn’t have to do too much thanks to a defensive touchdown and four scores on drives that began with excellent field position.
Thursday night's game, however, is a matchup in which the Broncos will likely have to throw more. They are a team that’s taken advantage of one of the easiest schedules and are 8-0 against teams with a .500 record or worse and 1-5 against teams with a winning record. Therefore, as 3-point 'dogs tonight, I project them to trail at a +10% higher rate than their season average, which should lead to more passing.
The Chargers use Zone coverage at the second-highest rate, which is where Vele thrives. He’s averaged just 0.28 yards per route run against man coverage while averaging 1.83 yards per route run against zone. Only Marvin Mims has seen a bigger boost vs. Zone for the Broncos, but a lot of that has to do with a 93-yard touchdown against the Browns.
On a similar note the Chargers have used press coverage at the lowest rate in the league. Vele has averaged just 1.0 yard per route run against press coverage, but jumps all the way up to 1.9 per route in off coverage.
Following the release of Josh Reynolds, it’s easier to project the Broncos WR rotation outside of Courtland Sutton. We can safely project Vele to run a route on ~65% of Bo Nix’s dropbacks tonight, which gives me closer to a 37.5 median and a 62% chance he clears 30.5.
