I've found my NFL player prop for Thursday Night Football tonight.
For Commanders vs. Eagles, I'm fading Kenneth Gainwell's production. Let's get into my NFL prop for tonight.
A reminder: Click here and enter the promo code "ACTION51" for $20 off the annual subscription price for Action PRO. You'll have everything you need to tail my picks as soon as they're available.
Kenneth Gainwell Player Prop
Gainwell has cleared this prop in four of the Eagles' last five games, which is why most of the action has been on his over. At BetMGM, that is one of the five most-bet props.
I see this as a good spot for him to stay under, though.
First off, the Eagles have won their last five games, including three by 20 or more points. That's the best possible environment for Gainwell to rack up carries and rushing yards.
Here's how the Eagles have distributed their rushing attempts based on score differential, which I think is important tonight:
As you can see, Gainwell benefits a ton when the Eagles are up by eight or more points, and it makes sense as the Eagles tend to limit Saquon Barkley’s workload. It’s also the kind of situation when the Eagles are going to be very run-heavy. The Eagles have run a play with a lead of eight or more points 36% of the time during their five-game win streak. Naturally, Gainwell has cleared this number at a very high rate during that stretch.
However, tonight’s game against the Commanders should be much more competitive and based on the four-point spread. I project Philadelphia to run just 17% of their plays with a lead of eight or more points (essentially half the rate we have seen over their last five games) and about 67% of their snaps with a neutral game script (a one-score game).
There’s also a chance we see the Eagles end up facing a rare trailing game script here. While Gainwell does see a slight boost in rush attempt share in trailing game scripts, it’s also a state that would see the Eagles are going to be rushing at a lower rate, which would also help Gainwell’s under.
Of course, there's a chance the Eagles get up by 10 or more points early in the game and we end up in a game script that will lead to Gainwell being set up to crush this prop. That can obviously happen here, but I’m simply projecting that the chances of that being lower here. We should see a game that is much more competitive and will lead to Barkley handling a much bigger workload.
Based on my projected attempts for the Eagles and chances we see the various game states I've discussed, I’m projecting Gainwell for around 3.5 rush attempts.
So, we now need to project how efficient Gainwell will be on his rush attempts tonight.
Gainwell tends to run inside at a high rate as 66% of his runs have gone inside the tackles, which would rank fourth-highest among qualified RBs. The Commanders run defense has been much better defending inside runs this season, allowing a -0.38 rushing yards over expected per attempt (according to NextGenStats) which is the sixth-lowest rate in the NFL. A big part of this is future Hall of Fame LB Bobby Wagner doing an excellent job of preventing RBs from getting into the open field.
Therefore, I think Gainwell may be a bit less efficient on his rush attempts against Washington tonight.
Based on my simulations for his prop, I’m getting Gainwell's median closer to 11.5 yards here with around a 60% chance he stays under 14.5. You can see my projected chances for each yard in this range here.
| Rush Yards | Over | Under |
|---|---|---|
| 11.5 | 50% | 50% |
| 12.5 | 46% | 54% |
| 13.5 | 43% | 57% |
| 14.5 | 40% | 60% |
| 15.5 | 36% | 64% |
| 16.5 | 32% | 0.68 |
