3 NFL Player Prop Bets for Thursday Night Football: Week 8

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways, from taking advantage of them straight up within the betting market to measuring a player's potential to produce in daily fantasy football.

Here we'll focus on utilizing our projections and a slew of other tools and simulations to help make money betting player props. For this article, we are using the odds provided at FanDuel Sportsbook to pinpoint spots where value can be had this week.

The prop-betting experience on FanDuel Sportsbook is getting even more fun. You can track your player props with real-time updates and place in-game props with ease.

Each and every week I'll be bringing separate prop bets articles for Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, and the Sunday main slate.

Note: Betting lines and our player projections may change after this article is published.

Mike Evans Over 67.5 Receiving Yards (-115)

To start off Week 8, we are turning to Mike Evans and his receiving yards prop.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are hosting the Baltimore Ravens with a total set at 45.5 and the Bucs favored by 1.5 points. Evans plays a strong and consistent role in the Buccaneers' passing offense, which puts him in a spot to hit the over on 67.5 receiving yards.

To this point in the season, Evans is playing on 82.3% of the snaps and running a route on 85.1% of drop backs. He owns a 19.4% target share, 32.7% air yards share, and 12.9-yard average depth of target (aDOT). This has led to him averaging 75.6 receiving yards per game, the highest on the Buccaneers.

When it comes to the Ravens' secondary this season, they are getting absolutely torched by wide receivers as they have allowed the third-most (1,341) receiving yards to the position.

With Russell Gage listed as out and Julio Jones set to be a game-time decision, the wide receiver position for the Buccaneers is a bit thin tonight. This should put Evans in a spot to control even more of the passing work from Tom Brady.

All of this has Evans projected for 77.61 receiving yards, per our model, hitting the over on his prop tonight.

Leonard Fournette Over 12.5 Rushing Attempts (-122)

Next up, over 12.5 rushing attempts for Leonard Fournette.

There's no doubt the Buccaneers are a pass-heavy team -- a league-high 67.4% pass-play percentage -- but there's still some value in the rushing props.

Fournette is coming off a game where he had just 8 carries for 19 yards. While that is very low, we have to account for the fact the Buccaneers fell behind versus the Carolina Panthers and were forced into a passing game script.

The same thing can be said about Week 4, when Fournette had only three carries against the Kansas City Chiefs, as it was another game where they were forced into a passing game script.

If we remove those clear outliers from Fournette's stats, he has a total of 92 rushing attempts across the other five weeks -- an average of 18.4 attempts per game. Considering this game has a very close 1.5-point spread, we shouldn't see this game get out of hand, and that should help Fournette get his rushing work.

Our projections have Fournette going for 18.22 rushing attempts -- well clear of his 12.5 prop.

Gus Edwards Under 46.5 Rushing Yards (-110)

Finally, an under on Gus Edwards rushing prop tonight.

Edwards made his season debut last week after suffering an ACL injury in 2021. He posted 16 rushing attempts, 66 rushing yards, and a pair of touchdowns on the ground -- a delight to Ravens' fans and fantasy players everywhere. While that is great to see, we need to take stock of a few different things.

First off, Edwards played on only 36.5% of the snaps last week and split work with Kenyan Drake (25.4% snap rate) and Justice Hill (31.7%), who also had decent roles in the offense. Next, we have to note that Edwards has been limited in practice -- on a short week -- and is officially listed as questionable for tonight's game.

We have a running back who is coming off a major knee injury, splitting time in the Ravens' backfield, and on a short week. None of that inspires confidence, and it has me going with under 46.5 rushing yards tonight.