Joe Burrow 2020 player props: How to bet the Bengals rookie
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In the famous words of Bill Belichick, Joe Burrow is "on to Cincinnati."
The first overall pick of last week's draft carries the weight of a franchise on his shoulders as he embarks on his maiden NFL campaign, and oddsmakers have set lines on how the Bengals rookie will fare in his debut season.
Let's see what we have to work with.
Over/Under 3,800 passing yards
The football world is understandably bursting with anticipation for Burrow's NFL debut after he went scorched earth on the NCAA last season, but it's important to temper expectations. This number fails in that regard. No rookie quarterback has surpassed 3,800 passing yards since Jameis Winston in 2015, and he's the only one to do so in the last seven years. Even Carson Wentz and Dak Prescott, who were both outstanding in 16 rookie starts in 2016, fell short of this mark.
Burrow has the benefit of playing for a Bengals team that ranked sixth in pass attempts per game last season, but even that volume was barely enough to help his predecessors combine for this total. Andy Dalton and Ryan Finley threw 3,968 passing yards between them under first-year head coach Zac Taylor in 2019, but Taylor surely knows that having his rookie quarterback throw 40 times a game is far from a winning recipe. Expect a significant decrease in Cincinnati's passing volume in 2020 as Burrow falls short of this number.
Pick: Under
Over/Under 22.5 passing touchdowns
The Bengals struggled mightily when it came to finding the end zone last season, ranking 30th in both red-zone touchdown percentage and passing touchdowns per game. But a season of head coaching experience for Taylor and some major personnel improvements - most notably the return of A.J. Green and arrival of Tee Higgins - should result in some drastic improvements in those areas.
While throwing for 3,800 yards has been something of an unattainable feat for rookie quarterbacks, touchdowns through the air haven't been in such short supply. Rookie signal-callers have surpassed this total in three of the past four seasons: Daniel Jones threw for 24 scores last season, Baker Mayfield tossed 27 in 2018, and Prescott amassed 23 in 2016.
Pick: Over
Over/Under 16.5 interceptions
It's hard to put much stock in college stats when discussing a player's potential at the NFL level, but it's certainly worth mentioning that Burrow threw just 11 interceptions in two full seasons at LSU. Even more impressive: In his three toughest tests of the 2019 season - Alabama, Georgia in the SEC championship, and Clemson in the national championship game - he wasn't intercepted once.
At 23 years old, Burrow is one of the older rookies entering the league. He's got maturity, football savvy, and experience, all of which he's demonstrated time and time again through his ability to master pre-snap reads and dissect coverages. His remarkable football IQ will help limit his mistakes at the NFL level, while his biggest weakness - his arm strength - shouldn't impact him too severely in this area.
Only one rookie quarterback has thrown 17 or more interceptions in the last five years - DeShone Kizer in 2017. Not even Winston hit this mark.
Pick: Under
Alex Moretto is a sports betting writer for theScore. A journalism graduate from Guelph-Humber University, he has worked in sports media for over a decade. He will bet on anything from the Super Bowl to amateur soccer, is too impatient for futures, and will never trust a kicker. Find him on Twitter @alexjmoretto.