NHL Best Bets for Tuesday (11/19)
Kenneth Le
Dual-threat NFL quarterbacks are now common in the NFL. Randall Cunningham and Michael Vick paved the way for the new prototype teams are looking for. Fantasy football managers are the same way. The evidence is the meteoric rise in ADP we see from one man in particular, Justin Fields.
Fields was a mid-round QB flier last season, mostly because he uses his legs. Rushing yards are worth 0.1 in fantasy vs. 0.04 for each passing yard. Guys who can run are super valuable in fantasy and also to keep the chains moving for their respective teams. This year Fields is going off the board in Round 5 or earlier. The reason for this? His tremendous rushing yardage totals from 2022.
2023 NFL Rushing Yardage Prop
Justin Fields Over 875.5 Rushing Yards
Justin Fields played in 15 games last season and managed to rack up 1,143 yards on the ground. That breaks down to a very solid 76.2 per game. That was the sixth in the NFL — not sixth for quarterbacks, but the sixth-most rushing yards per game from any player. Josh Jacobs, Nick Chubb, Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley and Jonathon Taylor are the only guys who rushed for more yards per game than Fields. That is some elite company to be in. His 10 runs of 20-plus yards tied him for the second most in the NFL, behind only Chubb. The numbers Fields put up on the ground were unreal last year.
The company Fields kept in 2022 is why I love his rushing yardage total this season. The names mentioned above all have rushing yardage props much higher than Fields does. Chubb, Henry and Taylor are all above 1,200 for 2023. Jacobs is at 1,075, and Barkley has the lowest at 975. All of those guys are at least 100 yards ahead of Fields. If this number opened at 950 or higher it would still be interesting to me. At only 875, it feels way too low for his abilities.
Fields also racked up those 1,143 in just 15 games last season. Quarterbacks are always at risk of injury, but running backs are as well and no one uses that excuse for the other names on this list. At 875.5 yards over 17 games, Fields would only need to average 51.5 yards per game to hit the over. That is 25 yards below his per-game average in 2022. Even if we see some regression this season, that’s a 33% cushion. That does not even account for the fact he topped this number by over 260 yards in just 15 games last season. If he played all 17 games in 2022 at the same pace, he would have finished just a few yards shy of 1,300.
The reason Fields’ rushing yardage total is so low is due to the risk of injury. That is a valid concern, but it is a valid concern for all players at all positions. The difference between Fields and most other skill position players is that the discount afforded to him on his rushing prop due to that injury risk makes his total way lower than it should be. Fields would have to play 12 games at his 2022 rushing yardage per-game average to top this number, so even a few missed games due to injury does not kill any chance he has of cashing this ticket. Fields is an absolute weapon with his legs, and it is disrespectful to him to have such a low total. While Fields cannot do anything about this disrespect, we can by betting the over and taking the value that Caesars Sportsbook is offering to us.
