Texans vs. Panthers Prop Picks: Bet On A Terrace Marshall Breakout On Thursday Night Football?

Sean Koerner, our Director of Predictive Analytics, is highlighting his favorite player prop for every slate throughout the 2021 NFL season. He has a 389-288-4 (57%) all-time record on NFL bets he’s tracked in the Action app.

NFL Prop Bet: Panthers-Texans

Terrace Marshall Over 28.5 Rec Yds

It’s important to treat player props like a market (because it is). One of my favorite strategies is to target rookies before they break out, investing in them at numbers we can look back and laugh at.

Here are a few examples of low-total props for rookie receivers we exploited in 2020, with how many receiving yards they actually finished that game with:

• Week 1: CeeDee Lamb over 50.5 (59)
• Week 3: Justin Jefferson over 18.5 (175)
• Week 5: Chase Claypool over 23.5 (110)

We will never get access to numbers that low for any of those WRs, likely ever again, which brings me to Terrace Marshall's prop for Thursday night.

Marshall was a first-round talent who ended up falling to the Panthers in the second round of the 2021 draft. It wasn’t the best landing spot for Marshall, considering the Panthers already have D.J. Moore and Robby Anderson — not to mention that it's unlikely Sam Darnold will be able to support three WRs every week. However, Marshall is too good to take a backseat for long.

Offensive coordinator Joe Brady is already familiar with Marshall from their LSU days, so Brady will be able to maximize Marshall's potential within his scheme.

Marshall is off to a slow start, posting lines of 3/26/0 and 3/17/0 in his first two games, but Jefferson and Claypool had similarly slow starts before they broke out last season. While I don’t necessarily think Marshall is going to start producing like Jefferson, I do think Marshall's role will only increase as the season progresses, and this seems like the perfect time to invest in his upcoming breakout.

The Panthers have been scheming plays to get the ball into Marshall’s hands in space. His expected yards after catch (xYAC) per reception mark of 7.3 is the seventh-highest after two games. What that tells me is Darnold has been getting Marshall the ball in space, and it’s only a matter of time until he breaks off a big run after a catch.

Thursday will be the first time a lot of fans will get to see Marshall play, and it's in an easy matchup against one of the worst secondaries in the league.

If you haven’t seen his preseason highlights, watch this:

Marshall is going to be special and I want to invest in him before the rest of the market catches onto that.

I would bet this over up to 35.5 yards. PointsBet is offering the best line as of writing, but be sure to check whichever books you have access to.