Sean Koerner, our Director of Predictive Analytics, is highlighting his favorite prop(s) for every slate throughout the 2020 season — he was 51-27 (65.4%) heading into Week 7 with a 257-177-5 (59.2%) overall record on NFL bets he's tracked in the Action app.
Find his picks for Monday Night Football featuring the Bears and Rams. And if you're looking for more action, his projections also power the FantasyLabs NFL Player Prop Tool, which grades every prop.
NFL Prop Bet for Bears-Rams
- The Pick: Robert Woods Under 5.5 Rec (-150)
- Bet Now: FanDuel
Robert Woods sees steady production every week, running a route on 92% of the Rams' pass plays this season. And as evidenced by his target counts for Weeks 1-6 — 6, 4, 5, 7, 5 and 8 — he is very easy to project each week.
And tonight, there enough factors going against him that we can attack the under on his receptions prop.
If you have access to under 5.5 receptions, the "fair" price would be around -230, so I would bet the juice down to -200. But if you only have access to his under at 4.5 receptions, the "fair" price would be around -110, so I would bet that juice down to +100.
As 6-point home favorites, the Rams should have a run-heavy game plan against the Bears, who also happen to rank No. 2 in Football Outsiders' pass defense DVOA. Woods is likely to see quite a bit of Kyle Fuller coverage, who is Chicago's top corner.
It's not that Woods won't be involved tonight — we could see the Rams will still find ways to get him the ball via jet sweeps, which count as run plays. He could see two to three of such plays, which in a sense, would only help the under.
My projection for Woods is based on the assumption that he's playing at 100% tonight and the groin injury that forced him to sit out Friday practice will not be an issue whatsoever. However, groin injuries can be tricky and an in-game setback is not out of the question for Woods. He needed surgery back in 2015 to fix an injured groin, which creates some concern, so there's a chance the Rams limit him to say 70-90% of his usual role as a way to be cautious.
Even despite that possibility, I'm already betting his under based on the underlying data — it just doesn't hurt that his groin injury may come into play.
Based on my 10,000 player prop simulations, you can compare 4.5 and 5.5 see how valuable each reception is in a market like this:
