Trevor No. 1? You bet!
The NFL regular season is over, which means that for us true degenerates — and fans of teams that didn’t make the playoffs — it’s time to start looking ahead to the 2021 NFL draft.
And by “NFL draft,” I mean the NFL draft prop market.
Last year, I was 124-88-1 (+26.2 units) betting the NFL draft and the No. 6 mocker in the FantasyPros accuracy contest.
In 2019, I was 54-29 (+17.7 units) betting the draft and was also a top-20 mocker in the FantasyPros accuracy contest and Mock Draft Database contest.
Obsessing about the NFL draft, mocking the NFL draft, betting the NFL draft: It’s what I do.
At the moment, I see only one prop on the NFL draft market, but that’s not a problem, because ...
1. The market should start to fill out in the next month or so.
2. I’m betting the one prop that’s out there. Trevor Lawrence: No. 1 pick overall. 2021 NFL Draft: Trevor Lawrence No. 1 Overall Pick
At BetMGM, Lawrence is available at -1200 as the No. 1 overall pick, and I love him at that price.
There are two main reasons I like Lawrence at -1200.
First, Lawrence is cheap at BetMGM compared to other books.
FanDuel: -6000
PointsBet: -5000
DraftKings: -2000
Given the rest of the market, getting Lawrence at -1200 feels like shoplifting.
Second, Lawrence has 92.3% implied odds to be the No. 1 pick at -1200, and that feels far too low.
Lawrence’s true odds are probably closer to 97-98% -- and even with that guesstimation, I’m trying to be conservative to allow for the unexpected.
If Lawrence isn’t the No. 1 pick, I think it will have more to do with some sort of Black Swan than with another player beating him out.
Quarterback Justin Fields has gotten some hype, especially after he propelled Ohio State to a 49-28 win over Lawrence’s Clemson team with 28-385-6 passing and 8-42-0 rushing in the College Football Playoff semifinals.
And it’s not as if the hype is unwarranted: Fields is a great player with a strong chance to be the No. 2 pick overall. In his two years as a starter for the Buckeyes, Fields averaged 11.0 adjusted yards per attempt (AY/A), and he was the No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in his 2018 recruiting class.
But Lawrence was the No. 1 pocket passer among the 2018 recruits, he started almost right away at Auburn, and as a 19-year-old true freshman he led the Tigers to a 15-0 National Championship season that featured an emphatic 44-16 win over then-undefeated Alabama in the title game.
Again, Fields is great. In 2019, his first season as a starter, he was 3,273-41-3 passing.
But here’s a very unreasonable yet very real problem for Fields: He’s following Dwayne Haskins, who also looked great in his first (and only) year as a starter. In 2018, Haskins was a superb 533-4,831-50 passing.
And now he’s not even on an NFL team. Rightly or wrongly, talent evaluators will compare Fields to Haskins and note that Haskins wildly outproduced him at a similar stage in college, and they will also question whether the Buckeyes offense under head coach Ryan Day is capable of preparing a quarterback for the NFL.
With Lawrence, those organizational concerns don’t exist. We know Clemson can produce a high-end NFL quarterback -- Deshaun
Odds are long that Trevor Lawrence will not be the top pick in the NFL draft.
Watson is one of the best players in the league. Watson finished the 2020 season ranked No. 2 with a 9.5 AY/A, trailing only Aaron Rodgers (9.6).
Talent evaluators will like that Lawrence has been groomed by Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney.
And although Lawrence has not been nearly the runner that Watson was in college, his passing numbers more than stack up with Watson’s aerial production.
Trevor Lawrence (40 games): 10,098-90-17 | 9.8 AY/A
Deshaun Watson (38 games): 10,168-9032 | 8.7 AY/A
Lawrence entered college as the top passer in his recruitment class, and now he leaves it as a national champion and one of the most anticipated draft prospects in NFL history.
It’s hard to imagine him not going No. 1 this spring. By the time the draft arrives, his line will likely be no shorter than -2000.
PICK: Lawrence No. 1 -1200: One unit. Limit: -2000