Week 5 of the NFL season begins tonight with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers traveling to Mercedes-Benz Stadium to face the Atlanta Falcons. Let's jump into my favorite Thursday Night Football pick, featuring Falcons QB Kirk Cousins.
Nick Giffen's NFL Player Prop Picks for Thursday Night Football
- Kirk Cousins Over 0.5 Interceptions (-108, FanDuel)
The Falcons offense struggled with pressure against the blitz in their first four games of the season, and as a result, Kirk Cousins has recorded the 2nd-most turnover-worthy plays heading into this week, and quite frankly, he's somewhat fortunate to have escaped with only four interceptions on the year thus far.
Most of those instances came while he was under duress, as Cousins owns a 10.5% turnover-worthy play percentage versus pressure, which is the 3rd-worst mark in the league on the season.
On the flip side, the Buccaneers' pass rush isn't exactly the cream of the crop, currently ranked 13th in the league in pressure rate. However, that would actually rank 2nd amongst Atlanta's five opponents in that department so far this season.
The Bucs enter this week having tallied the 5th-most passes defended on the year, but based on historical averages drawn from that number, they've come away with an interception or two less than expected (around 19.5% of passes defended are intercepted, but only 17% for Tampa Bay so far this year).
Tampa Bay's defense should be due for some positive regression in this particular market, and the price for Cousins to throw an interception on Thursday night doesn't seem to reflect that.
