Sean Koerner, our Director of Predictive Analytics, is highlighting his favorite prop for every primetime game throughout the 2020 season — he's 4-2 so far and has a 219-157-4 (58.2%) all-time record on NFL bets he's tracked in the Action app.
Find his pick for Monday Night Football below. And if you're looking for more action, his projections power the FantasyLabs NFL Player Prop Tool, which grades every prop.
NFL Prop Bet: Saints vs. Raiders
- The Pick: Latavius Murray Over 30.5 Rush Yards (-110)
- Bet Now:BetMGM
All the attention tonight will be on how the Saints offense adapts without Michael Thomas — Emmanuel Sanders, Tre'Quan Smith, Deonte Harris, Jared Cook and Alvin Kamara will all need to step up in his absence.
Drew Brees is starting to show his age (41) in terms of arm strength, forcing Sean Payton to run a much more conservative offense. Brees' 4.7 Average Intended Air Yards was the lowest of all Week 1 quarterbacks (per Pro Football Reference).
The loss of Thomas will only force Payton to get more creative this week. I can see him using Taysom Hill and Alvin Kamara in creative ways tonight. Kamara could be used as a movable chess piece in the passing game and limit the number of direct handoffs he gets in exchange.
This is where Latavius Murray can be one of the players who also need to step up in Thomas' absence. He outpaced Kamara in rush attempts 15 to 12 in Week 1, and we could see a similar split tonight.
Murray has a much easier matchup this week, too. The Bucs (Week 1 opponent) ranked first in Football Outsiders' DVOA against the run last season while the Raiders (Week 2 opponent) ranked 20th. Linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski has been downgraded to doubtful, which should only improve Murray's outlook tonight.
Murray will need the Saints to be leading or the game to be close to favor the over. Given the Saints are 4-point favorites (find real-time odds here), I would say it's likely to be a positive game script for him as well — I feel like I'm actually relatively conservative in projecting him for 9.0 rush attempts.
Here the chances of him clearing various yardages based on my player prop simulations, which simulated tonight's game 10,000 times:
