We take a look through some of the best bets for the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, including taking the under on QBs in the top 32.
While many view the NFL Draft as a time for their favorite team to hit it big on a franchise player or fill positional holes and turn their team into a Super Bowl contender, the NFL Draft is also one of the most underrated opportunities for sports betting.
While picking a spread or over-under is heavily based on personal analysis, betting the draft is much more technical. For example, if you think a team will win a game, you bet them on the money line and hopefully see positive results in a game with no predetermined result.
However, with the draft, the team picking gets to decide the outcome, and it becomes your job to arrive at the same conclusion as them.
This means that staying tuned to news, reading the market, and looking at positional needs is much more effective when betting on the draft than doing your own player analysis and putting it in the hands of these teams to arrive at the same conclusion as you.
It is also worth noting that lines move fast when betting on the NFL draft, so if you like a bet you should attack it before it is too late. With that being said, here are five of my favorite bets that I have placed for the upcoming 2022 draft, with all odds courtesy of WynnBet.
Under 3.5 First Round Quarterbacks Selected in the 2022 NFL Draft (-220)
A common theme in almost all of my NFL Draft bets is the fading of this quarterback class. What better way to do that than take the under on first-round quarterbacks selected, despite it being quite juiced to the under?
Instead of looking at how this bet can be, let us see where it can lose. The top three consensus quarterbacks are Malik Willis, Kenny Pickett, and Desmond Ridder. Assuming all three of these players get picked, which is a large assumption, Matt Corral would likely be the quarterback that pushes this bet to the over.
First and foremost, I think taking a quarterback in the top ten of this year’s draft would be a huge mistake. The prospects are simply not NFL ready and would be best suited on a team with a serviceable starting quarterback, not a team that would need them ready to go Week 1.
I project the first quarterback to go at Pick No. 20 to the Steelers, or possibly Pick No. 19 to the Saints. From there, I could see the Titans taking a quarterback at Pick No. 26, leaving the Detroit Lions as the only quarterback-needy team left in the first round.
If three quarterbacks are off the board at this point, I believe Pick 32 for Matt Corral would be a huge overpay and the Lions could simply take him at Pick No. 34 if they wanted.
With all that being said, I love the under on 3.5 quarterbacks selected up to -300 and would take under 2.5 quarterbacks as well if I was seeing around +200.