It will be the second consecutive primetime game for superstar wideout Justin Jefferson, as his 5-2 Minnesota Vikings will host the 4-4 Indianapolis Colts in Sunday Night Football in Week 9.
The Vikings have lost two consecutive games after a 5-0 start, but it hasn’t been because of a lack of production from Jefferson and the offense.
My NFL picks and breakdown of the Justin Jefferson odds expect another big game from the wideout against a bad defense.
Justin Jefferson SNF player prop picks
- Best bet
Longest reception Over 27.5 yards
(-115 at bet365) - SGP Pick
Jefferson Over 85.5 receiving yards
Josh Downs Over 5.5 receptions
Joe Flacco Over 36.5 pass attempts
(+350 at bet365)
Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.
Justin Jefferson SNF prop pick
My best bet
Longest reception Over 27.5 yards (-115at bet365)
My analysis
There were a lot of questions surrounding how successful this season would be for Justin Jefferson and the Minnesota Vikings after losing Kirk Cousins and moving to Sam Darnold after their first-round pick, J.J. McCarthy, had a season-ending injury. Well, he and Darnold answered those questions quickly with a 5-0 start, averaging 27.8 points and 207.8 passing yards per game.
While they have lost the last two, the offense has still managed to put up 49 points and 456 passing yards. Now they get an Indianapolis Colts team that allows 227.8 passing yards per game, which ranks 24th in the NFL. That is despite having three outlier games against Malik Willis, Will Levis, and Tyler Huntley.
The move to Darnold at quarterback has actually created more deep-ball opportunities for Jefferson than he had with Cousins. He has run a vertical route on a career-high 39.3% of his routes this year thus far. He also leads the NFL in both catches and receiving yards on passes over 10 air yards this season. That is 21 catches for 505 yards.
The Colts defense has allowed 13.2 yards per reception to wide receivers this season, which ranks 24th in the league. They also allow 12.2 yards per attempt against downfield passes this season, which is the fourth most in the NFL.
Jefferson has had at least one catch of 25+ yards in every game this season. He had at least one catch of 28+ yards in three games this season. So even when he doesn’t hit this number, he gets extremely close. So, playing against a defense that struggles in guarding deep passes makes me feel comfortable with making this my best bet.
The Colts allowed two players to have a long reception of 28+ yards last week against the Texans, three players to do so against the Jaguars in Week 5, three players against the Steelers in Week 4, two players against the Bears in Week 3, and one against each of the Packers and Texans in the first two weeks.
Justin Jefferson SNF same-game parlay
Jefferson Over 85.5 receiving yards
Josh Downs Over 5.5 receptions
Joe Flacco Over 36.5 pass attempts
We are unable to use our best play in the same game parlay, but there is a nice alternative to our best pick that should work out nicely to start here.
Jefferson’s total yardage is the play to pivot to. It is at 85.5 yards and since we feel confident he is going to have at least one catch of 28 or more yards, that would only leave a minimum of 58 yards on any of his other catches. That feels like a very solid play to make up for not being able to use his longest reception prop.
For the rest of this same game parlay, I am looking to the other side of the ball and another reason to like Jefferson's props in this game. The Vikings have a lot of issues on defense in stopping the pass, allowing the most attempts and the third most yards in the NFL. That is where I will be looking to both Joe Flacco and Josh Downs.
Downs has been a reception machine with Flacco behind center, averaging eight catches on 11 targets per game. We will start with his reception Over. Then, I will go with Flacco Over on attempts. He averaged 36 attempts per game in his three starts previously this season and the Vikings allow 41.3 pass attempts per game this year.
Learn how to bet a same-game parlay with these helpful tips and strategies.
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