I've found my NFL player prop for Monday Night Football tonight.
For Dolphins vs. Rams, I'm fading a tight end whose role has decreased in recent weeks in the Los Angeles passing attack. Let's get into my NFL prop for tonight.
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Colby Parkinson Player Prop
Instead of simply giving out tonight’s prop with a couple of the key factors that led me to my decision, I wanted to go under the hood a bit and walk you through my projections process. It’s easy to just want to know what side of a prop is on, bet it, and then go about your day. But for those of you who'd like a more in-depth look at how I approached this prop (and every other prop) I post, let’s dive in.
Often when I give out a prop, I am asked “Have you considered X?” or “Have you considered Y?” and often times my answer is a resounding “Yes, of course.” For every prop I give out, I have already mapped out the factors and angles that would likely lead it to lose. There's also variance in every play that I have no control over. After my entire process, though, if I conclude something has enough value to warrant an “official” play, I lock it in.
This process, to date, has never led me to a prop where I had a 100% chance to cash and often times I am taking a prop that I give myself around a 40% chance to lose. If I or anyone else sat around waiting for a bet that we were confident would hit 100% of the time, we'd never be able to make a bet!
Therefore, my goal is to be “right”at a higher rate than the implied odds/juice being offered by sportsbooks. In the long run, the goal is profit and if you look at my history on the Action App, we’ve been doing this at a fairly steady rate for more than six years now. (I started betting props over a decade before I started tracking in our app, as well.)
So, let’s take a look at all of the various factors that led to my Colby Parkinson projection and why it’s my official play. Note: During this process, I’m trying to understand where I might be too aggressive or conservative with my projection. This prop might win and it might lose, but the thing I enjoy the most about prop betting is the process. Here's what that looks like for Dolphins vs. Rams.
Playing Time
In order for Parkinson to get receiving yards, he has to be on the field. Specifically, he has to be running a route on a Matthew Stafford dropback. Tight end is a position where certain players may stay in block, while others run a route.
The Rams signed Parkinson to a three-year contract worth $22 million to do both since he’s considered a good blocking TE but can also be used as a pass catcher when needed. With Tyler Higbee (knee) still on injured reserve, Parkinson has been the lead pass-catching tight end for the Rams all season.
However, since the Rams' Week 6 bye, we’ve seen Hunter Long and Davis Allen begin mixing in even more. Here is my routes run rate table from my personal "projection maker" sheet:
Allen actually out-snapped and ran more routes than Parkinson last week against the Seahawks. I noticed this extreme shift in playing time occurred right after Parkinson was flagged for an illegal motion penalty when it was second and goal on the Seahawks' 10-yard line, which backed the Rams up the 15-yard line. Los Angeles was then bailed out by a pass-interference penalty that set it up with a first-and-goal situation at the Seahawks' 2-yard line, which led to a touchdown.
It was clear, though, that Parkinson was put in Sean McVay’s doghouse due to the penalty. I said before the season I trust McVay as much as I trust sushi at a gas station in Wyoming, but we could see Allen continue to get more work tonight.
This is where I have to decide how much playing time I think Parkinson will get tonight.
I think assuming he'll bounce back to his 75-80% rate from Weeks 1-5 would be way too aggressive. I also think assuming he’s going to run a route 41% like last week would also be way too aggressive the other way. I’m sure McVay placed him in the doghouse for the rest of last week’s game but will have a fairly clean slate heading into tonight's game.
However, we have seen Allen and Long mixing in more since the Rams' Week 6 bye, so ignoring that trend could lead us to show false value on his "over." Therefore, I think a 55% routes run projection for Parkinson finds the right balance.
How this bet wins: We are correct in that the recent trend in Parkinson’s route participation rate meant he would see about 55% routes run rate tonight. We may have even banked on his playing time bouncing back too much and he ends up with a sub-40% routes run rate. He has actually fallen behind Allen on the depth chart (this has happened on other teams like with Tucker Kraft and Luke Musgrave, Will Dissly and Hayden Hurst, Greg Dulcich and Lucas Krull, etc). It would be a similar flip we have seen in on a few tight end depth charts this season.
How this bet loses: The spike in Allen snaps was only temporary and strictly due to McVay being upset at Parkinson in the moment due to the one penalty. He returns to his 80% routes run rate we saw in Weeks 1-5. This is certainly a possible scenario, but I think maybe slightly less likely than the potential 2-3 committee theory. I like how we are sort of splitting the difference here with the 55% route participation projection.
Pass Attempts
Now that we’ve estimated Parkinson’s route participation, let’s try to forecast just how many “routes” he should run tonight where there is a pass attempt.
The first thing that sticks out to me is how the 4-4 Rams have actually only played with the lead on 20% of their snaps this season (third-lowest rate in the league) and have trailed for 52% of their snaps (10th-highest rate in the league). Playing with a trailing game script that often is going to boost their passing rate.
So, while we may think a matchup against a potential playoff team like the Dolphins (with Tua Tagovailoa) would help boost Stafford’s pass rate, it’s actually the opposite.
The Rams are 2.5-point favorites tonight, which means I project them to play with the lead on 42% of their snaps and trail on 38%. Both rates would actually lower their expected pass rate quite a bit based on their to-date splits.
Using those splits, with a 2-year sample on the Rams' pass rate in those situations (I wanted to include last year’s sample where the Rams had Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua healthy and had a much bigger sample of "leading" snaps), I’m projecting Stafford to dropback 36.3 times tonight.
However, not all dropbacks lead to pass attempts. I have about 2.5 of those dropbacks resulting in a sack and 0.5 of those resulting in a rare Stafford scramble (he has zero scrambles this season and had 14 last season). Therefore, I end up with a 33.3 pass attempt projection for Stafford.
Considering the Dolphins have generated the eighth-highest pressure rate and RG Rob Havenstein has been ruled out, my sack projection for Stafford may be too conservative. It might also mean the Rams want to have tight ends stay in and block more. Both factors would only help Parkinson’s under.
So, if we assume Parkinson will be running a route on 55% of Stafford’s 33.3 pass attempts, we'd get a projection of 18.3 routes run.
How this prop wins: Not only is Parkinson’s playing time still at post-Week 6-bye levels, the Rams play with the lead for most of the game (a rare occurrence for them this season) and their pass rate drops significantly, meaning even fewer routes run for Parkinson.
How this prop loses: The Rams end up getting in yet another trailing game script early on, forcing Stafford to attempt more than 35 passes tonight. That invites more potential routes/targets/yards for Parkinson than anticipated.
Targets
The next step is figuring out how often Parkinson will draw a target on his projected 18 routes run (again, this is still just an estimate tied to all of the reasoning above since coaching decisions and game script could make this higher/lower).
I think it’s important to look at Parkinson’s target rate when either Kupp or Nacua have been in the lineup compared to the games when both were out. When both Kupp and Nacua were out from Weeks 3-7, Parkinson's target rate was 21.7%. When either Kupp or Nacua has played in Weeks 1-2 and 8-9, that drops to 10.4%.
It’s not surprising to see his target rate double when both Kupp and Nacua are out of the lineup. He cleared this number in all four games with both WRs out and was held under this number in three of the four games either WR has been active.
I’m projecting his target rate to be closer to 13% tonight. I think that might actually be a bit generous considering he’s only seen a 10.4% target rate when either WR is in the lineup, but Nacua missed most of last week's win over the Seahawks after getting ejected. This could be the first game all season both WRs are fully healthy and play the entire game.
We also see a pretty stark split in Parkinson’s target rate when Stafford has a clean pocket (14.5%) or is under pressure (9.9%). Considering the Dolphins generate pressure at a top-10 rate and Havenstein is out, I’m expecting Stafford to face more pressure than usual.
Parkinson also seen a huge dropoff in target rate when the Rams have played with the lead (6%) vs. trailing (15%). The Rams very well could end up in yet another trailing game script, but that has been the norm for them all year and Parkinson has benefited. We might actually see Los Angeles play with the lead more often tonight, which only lowers Parkinson’s floor even more.
How this prop wins: Parkinson continues to see his target rate take a huge hit with both Kupp and Nacua active and is potentially hurt by a leading game script.
How this prop loses: Either Kupp or Nacua is forced out of the game due to injury or ejection, leading to Parkinson seeing his usual target boost when that happens and/or the Rams get into yet another trailing game script, which would boost his target rate. He’s benefited from both factors a ton this season.
Receptions
Now that we have him projected to run around about 18 routes tonight and to draw a target on about 13.5% of them, we get a projection of approximately 2.4 targets.
Parkinson has caught 64% of targets this season, but his expected catch rate has been closer to 70%. So, I’m projecting Parkinson closer to a 68.5% catch rate which gives us a projection of 1.6 receptions. I created a potential distribution for Parkinson catches and ran it through my sim and arrived at a median projection of 14.5, with each yard in this range being worth about 3%.
Therefore, I have Parkinson staying under 18.5 receiving yards 64% of the time, 17.5 yards 61% of the time and 16.5 yards 58% of the time.
Now, Parkinson could end up clearing this, which would suck, but as I pointed out above, I’ve already mapped the entire process and at every point how/why I’m projecting everything, fully understanding that he could have things break his way (or not) that would allow him to clear this prop. I think there are more instances of me awarding him good faith, boosting his playing time from last week, boosting his target rate when both Kupp and Nacua are in the lineup and boosting his catch rate where I am actually projecting him higher than season-long or recent trends and still showing value on his under.
That’s why I’m making this my official Monday Night Football prop for Dolphins vs. Rams. Whether it wins or loses, this is the process I go through for pretty much every prop and in the end, I think we will be on the right side more often than not.
