With the 2023-2024 NFL schedule officially released last week (110 DAYS UNTIL NFL FOOTBALL!), we are one step closer to the NFL season kicking off. The schedule release also means that season-long player bet odds are starting to roll out across your favorite sportsbooks. Let’s take a look at the top 10 season-long player bets for the upcoming season! (Odds as of 5/13/22, and as always, please bet responsibly!)
Go here for daily NFL content!
10 NFL Season-Long Player Bets
1. Saquon Barkley To Score 10+ Rushing Touchdowns in the Regular Season (+125, Fan Duel)
The New York Giants and 2022-2023 coach of the year, Brian Daboll, seemed to have the ship heading in the right direction by making the playoffs and looking to have significantly improved on both sides of the ball. One of the reasons the Giants’ offense improved significantly was because of running back Saquon Barkley.
Barkley had his first 1000-yard rushing season since 2019. He also added ten touchdowns and his 1312 rushing yards in 2022/2023. With Barkley looking healthy, getting 10+ rushing touchdowns as plus money seems like a steal
2. Most Regular Season Rushing Yards (QBs Only), Justin Fields (+175, BetMGM)
With 1143 rushing yards, Justin Fields was 7th in the 2022/2023 NFL regular season in rushing yards, not just for QBs but for all positions. The next closest quarterbacks were Lamar Jackson (764 rushing yards), Josh Allen (762 rushing yards), and Jalen Hurts (760 rushing yards), meaning there were 379 yards between Fields and the next closest quarterback.
Lamar Jackson only surpassed 1143 rushing yards once in his career (1206 rushing yards in 2019) and has under 800 the past two seasons. Reports indicate the game plan for Josh Allen is to run less in the upcoming season. Hurts and the Eagles will be in many blowout victories. Fields looks poised to repeat as the quarterback with the most regular season rushing yards.
3. Jalen Hurts to Score 15+ Rushing Touchdowns in the Regular Season (+350, FanDuel)
While Jalen Hurts has fallen short of this the past two seasons (13 rushing touchdowns in 2022/2023 and ten rushing touchdowns in 2021/2022), you simply can’t deny the absolute offensive firepower that the Philadelphia Eagles possess at the moment. Hurts also carried the ball 26 more times last season than the previous.
That number could be a little higher in the upcoming season. While the Eagles blowing out multiple teams through the year makes this bet a little scary. The number of times the Eagles’ offense will find themselves in the red zone is enough to make this possibility a potential reality.
4. D’Andre Swift to Score 10+ Rushing Touchdowns in the Regular Season (+350, Fan Duel)
As mentioned above, the Philadelphia Eagles have absolute offensive firepower that can’t be ignored. However, with the departure of Miles Sanders (1,269 rushing yards and 11 rushing touchdowns last season) to the Carolina Panthers in the offseason, there’s a massive opportunity for someone to step in and fill his place.
Enter D’Andre Swift, who the Eagles acquired via a trade with the Detroit Lions during the 2023 NFL Draft. Swift finds himself in an offensive that will allow him to consistently showcase the talent the Lions were looking for him to show the past three seasons.
So while there is a congested backfield in Philadelphia at the moment with Swift, Rashaad Penny, and Kenneth Gainwell (oh, Trey Sermon and rookie Kennedy Brooks as well), look for Swift to rise to the occasion and deliver 10+ touchdowns for the Eagles in the 2023-2024 regular season and rising to the occasion to become the RB1 for this season and the future. Because as Macho Man Randy Savage always said, “The Cream rises to the top!“.
5. Most Regular Season Total Receiving Yards, Cooper Kupp (+1000, Fan Duel)
I know this is a bit of a stretch, but I want to remind everyone that Cooper Kupp is just one season removed from having the second-best receiving season (1,947 yards in the 2021-2022 season) in the history of the NFL. Yes, I know he’s coming off of an injury, but NFL teams have access to the best sports doctors in the world, so I’m expecting a bounce back in a big way. (Unlikely me, who’s still trying to recover from a quad injury in a kickball game years ago.)
While Justin Jefferson finds himself as the favorite, I’m expecting rookie Jordan Addison to cut into his production and K.J. Osborn to step up and establish himself with the departure of Adam Thielen. The addition of Addison and the increase in Osborn’s production could cause a slight decrease in Jefferson’s production.
The other top five favorited options besides Jefferson and Kupp are Ja’Marr Chase, Tyreek Hill, and A.J. Brown, all of who have equally as good WR2 (Tee Higgins, Jaylen Waddle, and DeVonta Smith) challenging them for receptions and yards every week.
Kupp is the only WR in that top five that has no one challenging him for receptions and yards, with the Los Angeles Rams offense being solely built around Kupp. So can Cooper Kupp come back this season and regain his spot as one of the top WRs in the league? The answer is yes.
6. Patrick Mahomes to Score 5+ Rushing Touchdowns in the Regular Season (+150, Fan Duel)
The 2023 NFL MVP and Superbowl LVII MVP, Patrick Mahomes, had four rushing touchdowns last year, which puts this bet in the realm of possibilities. With Isiah Pacheco establishing himself at running back last season, the (in my opinion) underrated off-season signing of Richie James, the selection of WR Rashee Rice in the 2023 NFL Draft, and Travis Kelce still being an absolute dawg at TE all providing the spreading of the field more than ever before.
I’m expecting there to be an uptick in Mahomes’ rushing attempts and yards because of this. Being only one touchdown away last year and a potential uptick in carries and yards seems to be the perfect recipe for the bet to be a delicious one.
7. Patrick Mahomes to Throw 40+ Passing Touchdowns in the Regular Season (+115, Fan Duel)
This bet builds right off a lot of what was mentioned above. During the offseason, the Chiefs prioritized getting Patrick Mahomes a few more offensive tools in the passing game, with the (again, in my opinion) underrated off-season signing of Richie James and the addition of Rashee Rice in the 2023 draft.
Patrick Mahomes had 41 passing touchdowns last season, and with the Chiefs’ offense getting even more robust in the offseason, look for him to have another 40+ passing touchdown season. Alright, enough about the Chiefs, this Eagles fan is still not over the Super Bowl LVII loss. Go Birds.
8. AP NFL Regular Season MVP 2023-2024, Jalen Hurts (+1200, Fan Duel)
Talking about the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes as the past two bets got me fired up about the Super Bowl LVII loss and how Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles are going to make the 2023-2024 NFL regular season (and post-season, too) known as the 2023-2024 Philadelphia Eagles NFL revenge tour.
Hurts at +1200 for MVP is crazy to me because he was the runner-up to Mahomes for MVP last season and ahead in the voting Josh Allen (+700), Joe Burrow (+700), and Justin Herbert (+900). Justin Herbert was 12th in MVP voting last year but had better odds (+900) than Hurts to win MVP in the upcoming season. There’s so much value here at Hurts’ odds for MVP that this seems like a no-brainer.
9. AP NFL Regular Season MVP 2023-2024, Patrick Mahomes (+700, Fan Duel)
In my previous articles this off-season, I have often talked about how high I am on both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs to have great seasons again, and both earn back-to-back trips to the Super Bowl, but this time the Eagles prevail, winning Super Bowl LVIII in 2024.
Being high on the Eagles and Chiefs means I also have to be high on both teams’ quarterbacks to have great regular seasons, which is probably no surprise since this is the 5th season-long bet in this list that involves either Jalen Hurts or Patrick Mahomes.
Mahomes is the safe bet here for MVP, but at +700 odds still seems like a good value, even as the favorite. It’s clear that Hurts and Mahomes are the top two QBs in the NFL, with Joe Burrow just a half step behind. If you don’t like the value of Hurts or believe he won’t win MVP, then Mahomes is the bet because they both look to be heading toward being the top two in NFL MVP voting for the second straight year.
10. Lamar Jackson Regular Season Rushing TDs Over 6.5 (+110, Fan Duel)
In case you forgot because of all the contract talk during the offseason, Lamar Jackson was the second-ever unanimous NFL MVP in 2019 and is a highly skilled dual-threat quarterback. So expect Jackson to enter the 2023/2024 season refreshed and with a bit of a chip on his shoulder to prove to everyone who doubted whether or not he deserved the contract he and the Baltimore Ravens agreed to on the same day as the 2023 NFL draft.
Lamar has rushed for seven TDs in a season twice in his career already (2019 and 2020), while illness and injuries in the 2021 and 2022 seasons hampered his rushing ability throughout the two seasons and caused him to miss multiple games in both seasons. However, all signs point to Jackson returning well-rested and at full speed in the 2023-2024 season and cashing in the over of 6.5 rushing TDs.
