NFL Best Bets and Player Props for Week 7: Dillon Does What He Can to Help Packers

This season has been a complete letdown for Packers fans, but one running back has been consistent in doing his best to help the team win — AJ Dillon. Read more in our best NFL player props for Week 7.

Alistair Corp - Publishing Editor at Covers.com
Alistair Corp • Publishing Editor
Oct 23, 2022 • 08:41 ET • 4 min read
AJ Dillon Green Bay Packers NFL
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While Week 7 doesn't have the heavyweight fight like last week at Arrowhead, there are still plenty of juicy player props to comb through and find good NFL betting value.

Ahead of kickoff, I'm taking a look at a tight end in an excellent matchup (and a little revenge spot) plus a middling tailback set to benefit from Washington's outright incompetence.

Check out my favorite NFL prop picks for Week 7 from around the league. 

Latest NFL prop picks

  • Everett Over 36.5 receiving yards (-115)
  • Dillon Over Over 44.5 rushing yards (-115)

Check out full analysis of picks below, or click here to view the full betting card.

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NFL prop picks for Sunday

Mount Everett

No player in the NFL has looked better than Gerald Everett this year. I mean literally, with the visor and the No. 7, in the Chargers' jerseys? Impossibly clean. As far as his play goes, however, it's been a mixed bag. There have been a few really strong games but also a pair of duds in which he totaled three catches and 27 yards.

Week 7 should be another one of the good weeks for Everett, however, as he faces his former team the Seahawks. Seattle's been tragic against tight ends again this year (a Pete Carroll tradition) despite not exactly facing a deadly slate of the position. Excluding the Cards, who played on TNF, the Seahawks have allowed the most yards to tight ends in the NFL this year, giving up an average of 79 yards per game. 

Despite the advantageous spot for Everett, his receiving yards total this week sits at just 36.5 yards, which he has topped three times this year. Not only is the opponent a friendly one for Everett but so too is his team's health.

Donald Parham, who was eating up two targets and 7.5 routes per game at tight end, is out. So too is big-bodied wideout Josh Palmer, while Keenan Allen is questionable (and sure to be treated carefully if he plays coming off a hamstring injury). 

Everett is set up to play an outsized role this week and it couldn't be coming against a more ideal opponent. I'm happily hitting the Over on his yards and will sprinkle a little on him to have 50+ receiving yards. 

Gerald Everett Prop: Over 36.5 receiving yards (-115)

Dillon does enough

The negativity surrounding the play of AJ Dillon, and the desire by many to see efficiency god Aaron Jones get more work, has seen Dillon's yards total this week sit at 44.5 which, if it holds, would be the lowest total all season. While there's merit to both the negativity surrounding Dillon and the want for more Jones, that is too low of a line.

At 44.5, in a matchup with a terrible Commanders team that is a 4.5-point home underdog, to take the Under you'd have to anticipate Washington keeping it close against the Packers. With Taylor Heinicke under center, I don't see it.

Green Bay's been bad this year, but there's bad and there's bad. Washington is the latter. Green Bay is 20th in team DVOA and Washington is 27th, but the difference between their marks (11.3%) is the equivalent to the gap between the Packers and the Bengals, who are 12th.

Dillon has proven throughout the last two years that, if afforded the chance to close out a game, he can accumulate enough work to go Over the modest totals before him. Two of his three Overs on the year have come in wins (against the Bears and Patriots), and those two games also happen to be the games in which he's received his highest carries.

It's completely an indictment of Washington but I do expect Dillon to get 15+ carries in a relatively uncompetitive game, and that sort of workload will get him Over his total, regardless of how much less efficient he may be than his backfield mate.  

AJ Dillon Prop: Over 44.5 rushing yards (-115)

NFL prop picks for Saturday

Amari's all you got 

While going from one of the league's best receiver trios, an explosive offense, and a fast-track turf to... the Cleveland Browns... may not have been the most exciting development in Amari Cooper's career, there's no doubt he has landed in a great situation for his own personal production.

With little else behind him, Cooper has emerged as one of the league's most highly targeted wideouts, with Jacoby Brissett looking to the former Cowboy relentlessly. 

With the exception of a Week 4 matchup with the Falcons and A.J. Terrell, one of the league's best corners, Cooper has been a target monster with double-digits in four games already. Cooper's target share (27.9%) and target rate (32.4%) are the highest of his career, and with David Njoku his main competition for targets, it's not going to change. 

We're looking at a great spot for Cooper to be spammed with targets this week, as the Browns head on the road as 6.5-point underdogs against the Ravens. That game could feasibly get out of hand, at which point Brissett is going to be dropping back an awful lot against a pass defense that's middling at best by most advanced metrics. 

Baltimore's quite reliably given up big games to receivers all season long, and few it has faced are targeted at the rate Cooper is. I'm happily taking the Over on his catches total this week. 

Amari Cooper Prop: Over 4.5 receptions (-105)

Moore to go around then

It's been a tough week for Jets receivers. First, Elijah Moore bizarrely requests a trade after a one-target day in Week 6... and 59 career catches.

While the team has no intention of honoring his request, he'll be held out of Sunday's game vs. the Broncos.

Now, poor Corey Davis and Garrett Wilson head to Sunday knowing dang well they're next to spend four quarters taking turns in Patrick Surtain II jail. 

Fear not, avid fans of the Jets' passing game, when one door closes another opens. And would you look at that, it's New York's tight end, Tyler Conklin, walking right through. 

So far, in Conklin's first year with the Jets, the athletic tight end has maintained the role that saw him break out during his final season with the Vikings and earn 87 targets, turning them into 61 catches, 593 yards, and three scores. 

Conklin's route participation (71%), target share (14.5%), and target rate (19.5%) are all nearly identical to last year's marks of a 70.7% route rate, 15.6% target share, and 20.4% target rate. And as Conklin proved last year, with a steady rate of targets he'll produce at a solid level, and that's continued with averages of 5.3 targets, 3.7 catches, and 34.3 yards per game this season.

Now, with a weakened receiver corps to compete with for targets, Conklin gets to face a Broncos defense in the bottom half of the league defending tight ends, giving up an average of 7.3 targets, 5.1 catches, and 48.3 yards per game. 

I love the Over on Conklin's receiving yards this week and intend to hit the Over on his catches when it opens, too. 

Tyler Conklin Prop: Over 18.5 receiving yards (-110)

NFL prop picks for Friday

Bob's back

Through five weeks, it looked like any chance of Robert Tonyan reviving his pre-ACL tear role in Green Bay's offense was dead. Running a route on around 20% of Aaron Rodgers' dropbacks and earning a target share of around 10%, it was a far cry from the tight end's breakout 2020, in which he saw four targets per game on a route share of 62.4% and emerged as a high-level red-zone threat.

Tonyan's status as an afterthought in the Packers' offense was turned on its head last week, however, after slot receiver Randall Cobb left with a high-ankle sprain. 

Suddenly drawing greater importance as the offense's de facto slot receiver, Tonyan played 66.7% of snaps, ran a route on 34 of Rodgers' 45 dropbacks, earned a 29.2% target share, and finished with 10 catches for 90 yards — all easily season highs. 

Despite Tonyan's Week 6 explosion and Cobb's injury, his receiving yards line in Week 7 vs. the Commanders is at just 33.5, only an eight-yard increase from the last two weeks. That, in itself, seems misjudged. That's before taking into account the opponent this week, which is a flat-out terrible and poorly coached Washington defense. 

The Commanders are in the bottom half of the league in passing defense DVOA (19th) and EPA (22nd), and coverage busts have become a routine part of the Washington-viewing experience. Tonyan will see more than enough targets to help him Over this total but the Commanders' ability to shoot themselves in the foot could just help him along the way.  

Robert Tonyan Prop: Over 33.5 receiving yards (-114)

Out of the garage

Few ascending players have been as underwhelming this season as Terry McLaurin, who has suffered as a result of Carson Wentz's preference for rookie Jahan Dotson, the revival of Curtis Samuel, and just sort of running around without a purpose before heaving up a prayer.

After averaging over 1,000 yards per season through three years, McLaurin's seen his production drop off with his 61.2 yards per game the lowest of his career. That has been the result of a lessened workload. McLaurin's target share (16.4%) and target rate (15.5%) are both by far the lowest marks of his career, with neither metric falling below 23% previously.

Luckily for McLaurin, there's a light at the end of the tunnel with Wentz set to miss time with a hand injury and Taylor Heinicke taking over under center. Last season, with Heinicke starting 15 games, McLaurin saw a career-high 25.5% target rate and earned a target share of 24.5%, less than 1% off his career high. 

A dynamic deep threat, a clean technician as a route runner, and a killer over the middle of the field, McLaurin needs nothing more than a decent target share to produce. He hasn't gotten that yet this year, with Wentz Wentz-ing, but will surely get as much reunited with Heinicke, with whom a connection has already been proven. 

Helping things is a hamstring injury suffered by Dotson late this week, which has put his status in doubt. On balance, I would already have anticipated McLaurin pacing Washington in targets while Heinicke is under center. With Dotson hobbled, it's an even better play. 

Terry McLaurin Prop: Over 50.5 receiving yards (-130)

Not above the TLaw

Just as the Jaguars and Trevor Lawrence have regressed from the feisty status they once held, so too has Christian Kirk from the No. 1 wide receiver status he carried from March, when he got a market-shaking contract, until the early parts of the season in which his workload was that of a bona fide No. 1.

The last two weeks, both divisional clashes, have seen Kirk become a tertiary piece of a lost offense. Despite maintaining a route participation mark of around 80%, Kirk has drawn a target share of just 11.5% in Jacksonville's losses to the Texans and Colts. That includes seeing just three targets in Week 5 against the Texans, despite Lawrence throwing 47 times and Kirk running 38 routes.

With just six catches across the last three games, Kirk's yards total sits at 51.5 this week, easily the lowest of his season. Yet, it's still not enough for me to not fade the wideout. It's an indictment of the Jags' offense and Lawrence as much as it is of Kirk. This offense is broken and there's no reason to give it, or Lawrence, the benefit of the doubt. 

Certainly not against a Giants defense that, while grading out fairly average against the pass (20th in DVOA and 10th in EPA), thrives on the chaos born out of DC Wink Martindale's beautiful mind. The disguised blitzes and delayed pressure Martindale brings with abandon play directly into the mental processing issues Lawrence continues to have in year two. 

Lawrence is teetering on broken and has been genuinely terrible for two weeks in a row, but with Martindale's defense opposite him this week, a new low may be found. Sadly for Kirk, that would extend to him, too. 

Christian Kirk Prop: Under 51.5 receiving yards (-115)

  • Everett Over 36.5 receivng yards (-115)
  • Dillon Over 44.5 rushing yards (-115)
  • Tonyan Over 33.5 receiving yards (-114)
  • McLaurin Over 50.5 receiving yards (-150)
  • Kirk Under 51.5 receiving yards (-115)
  • Cooper Over 4.5 receptions (-105)
  • Conklin Over 18.5 receiving yards (-110)

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Alistair Corp Publishing Editor at Covers.com
Publishing Editor

Alistair has been working as a publishing editor on the Covers content team since January 2021. In addition to his work as an editor, he helps cover the NFL, the NBA, Formula 1, and soccer. Prior to joining Covers, he worked as a freelance writer covering the NFL.

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