3 NFL Player Prop Bets for Monday Night Football: Week 8

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways, from taking advantage of them straight up within the betting market to measuring a player's potential to produce in daily fantasy football.

Here we'll focus on utilizing our projections and a slew of other tools and simulations to help make money betting player props. For this article, we are using the odds provided at FanDuel Sportsbook to pinpoint spots where value can be had this week.

The prop-betting experience on FanDuel Sportsbook is getting even more fun. You can track your player props with real-time updates and place in-game props with ease.

Each and every week I'll be bringing separate prop bets articles for Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, and the Sunday main slate.

Note: Betting lines and our player projections may change after this article is published.

Tee Higgins Any Time Touchdown (+100)

The Cincinnati Bengals have a strong 24.50 implied team total tonight when they visit the Cleveland Browns.

We close out Week 8 with an AFC North battle that has plenty of factors to take into account. First off, the big news for the Bengals is that their star wide receiver, Ja'Marr Chase, is out for several weeks. This is no doubt a big loss for the Bengals, but they have plenty of other talented players who can step up.

One of them would be Tee Higgins, and I like him for a touchdown tonight. To start, Higgins is playing on 61.6% of the snaps and running a route on 69.2% of dropbacks, and he has a 16.9% target share, 11.6% red zone share, and 24.3% air yards share. The air yards share is the most notable since that is now the highest on the team with Chase out.

That has led to Higgins racking up 93 yards or more in three of his last four games, along with at least 5 receptions in those four games. He's been a consistent part of the Bengals' passing offense to this point in the season and has a chance to grab some more production with Chase out.

Despite those consistent numbers, Higgins has only one touchdown over the last four games. This is no fault of his own, as the Bengals have a loaded passing offense, but the Chase injury just freed up some room for him tonight to find the end zone.

Joe Burrow Over 263.5 Passing Yards (-110)

Joe Burrow has been super consistent for the Bengals, and I'm going with the over on his passing yards tonight.

Through seven weeks, Burrow is averaging 299 yards and 38 passing attempts per game, both of which are in the league's top 10. This shouldn't be a surprise because the Bengals have a 63.11% pass play percentage, which is good for the seventh-highest.

With Ja'Marr Chase out, do I expect that rate to drop? Yes. Do expect them to completely flip their offense into a run-heavy approach? No. The pass play percentage is going to decrease a bit, but given how successful they have been in the passing game, that will always put Burrow in a spot to rack up the yards.

Speaking of yards, he's been getting plenty of those with 275 yards or more in five of the seven games this season, three of which were at 300 yards or more.

Burrow comes in projected for 282.64 yards, hitting the over on his prop tonight.

Amari Cooper Over 4.5 Receptions (-102)

Finally, let's look at over 4.5 receptions for Amari Cooper tonight.

The Browns have a 47.33% rush play percentage, which is the ninth-highest in the league. This shouldn't be a surprise, as they've been a run-first team for a few seasons, and this year is nothing new. However, when they do pass the ball, it's often going in the direction of Amari Cooper, putting him in a great spot.

Cooper leads the Browns with a 26.6% target share, 38.0% air yards share, 12.6 average depth of target (aDOT), and 29.0% red zone target share. None of this is breaking news -- he's their best pass-catching option by a good margin.

That margin should only get wider with David Njoku out for a few weeks. Njoku (18.9%) is tied with Donovan Peoples-Jones for the second-highest target share on the team. This should consolidate much of the passing work around Cooper and DPJ.

With the Browns coming in as 3.5-point underdogs, they could be trailing in this game and pushed into a passing game script. All of this has Cooper projected for 5.14 receptions, which has him cashing the over on his reception total tonight.