Sunday Night Football is headlined by the defensively sound New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers.
The pregame narrative: Even though defence is the strong point for both teams, I’m backing Aaron Rodgers, Tyler Conklin and George Pickens in the prop markets.
Check out my Jets vs. Steelers prop picks for Sunday Night Football on Oct. 20.
Jets vs. Steelers prop picks
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Best Bet: Rodgers over 224.5 passing yards (-114)
Pittsburgh is elite at keeping points off the board (14.3 against per game) but it has been susceptible to giving up big yards to opposing quarterbacks in recent weeks.
In Week 5, Dak Prescott put up 352 yards and last Sunday, a much less talented Aidan O’Connell squeaked past this line with 227 yards.
Rodgers has averaged 41.5 attempts per game since Week 3, so the volume should be there to replicate a Prescott-like performance.
Rodgers cleared this line in all four of those outings.
The addition of Davante Adams may not help as much as fans hope in his first appearance in the offence, but it definitely won’t hurt.
Key stat: Rodgers is averaging 255.0 passing yards per game in his career.
Quick pick
Conklin over 2.5 receptions (-103): Adams is a great weapon for Rodgers but he won’t replace Conklin’s role as the safety net.
The tight end is listed as questionable but he logged a full practice on Friday which is a good sign for his availability.
Conklin has topped this total in three of his past four games and is averaging 4.2 receptions over that span.
Additionally, Pittsburgh allows the sixth most receptions to opposing tight ends (5.7).
If Conklin is active, he will have a role in the offence. He was in the same situation last week and ended up being on the field for 73% of the team’s snaps.
Pickens over 4.5 receptions (+110): This is certainly the riskiest play but the Steelers’ alpha receiver’s volume can’t be ignored.
Pickens leads the team with 44 targets and has 15 over the last two weeks. Unfortunately, the latter led to six receptions but the change to Russell Wilson should help, in my view.
Justin Fields completed 29-of-51 passes (56.9%) in those games and it seems defences started to figure him out.
Only Anthony Richardson has a worse season-long completion percentage (50.6%).
Picks made at 10:32 a.m. ET on 10/20/2024.
Spencer is a true sports junkie. A graduate of the Sports Journalism program at Centennial College, he first joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2023. He is now a contributing writer. He loves finding the edge to bet on in all sports but has a deep passion for the NBA and UFC. Previous stops include Sportsnet.