NFL Draft Betting Strategies

NFL DRAFT BETTING STRATEGIES — Betting on the NFL Draft is one of my favorite parts of the spring. This is a time when you’re analyzing what teams are likely to do with their personnel, as opposed to worrying about what a player will do during competition.

And that makes it a little easier to figure out where you should place your money. Sometimes, teams are kind enough to telegraph where they intend to go with their pick, while other picks require a little more work. But regardless of the situation, there are some key strategies for betting on the NFL Draft that can help you find genuine value. Here are a few of my favorite NFL Draft betting strategies.

Go Against the Big Names

Here’s something you should know: the public is terrible at betting on the NFL Draft. Most people look at the names they’ve heard of from college and think that because a player performed in college, he’s sure to get picked high in the draft. But it doesn’t work that way, and Jake Fromm was a great example of that.

Quite a few people remembered seeing Fromm lead Georgia to a national championship appearance, and the books priced him as a third-round choice accordingly. To me, that seemed far too high. Fromm might be a big name, but his skill set didn’t scream highly-rated prospect to me. To me, he looked more like a project, a player who could develop into a pro but was several years from that. Guys like that pop up in every draft, and NFL teams treat them like that. That screamed late round selection.

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And that was where Fromm wound up. Buffalo took him in the fifth round, well over his projected draft position of 70.5. If you played the over on Fromm’s draft position, you cashed early in the day and sat back to watch.

You can’t do the same with Caleb Williams, obviously, but you might be able to do it with other well-known names that aren’t getting a lot of attention. Michael Penix might be a good option for this; he’s well-known from his time at Washington but getting a grade in the second or third round. He might be an ideal candidate to fall to Day 3.

Know What Teams Need or Want

When teams have a specific need and there’s a player who matches what they want to do, they’ll usually go in that direction. One great example came in the 2022 draft, when the New York Jets had the fourth overall pick. The Jets had gone defense for their coaching staff, in part because they shared a division with Josh Allen and Tua Tagovailoa.

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That meant New York needed a shutdown cornerback, and Sauce Gardner happened to be sitting there at No. 4.
I jumped on Sauce Gardner as the Jets’ choice and cashed for plus money when New York made the pick. And that’s the kind of play that only comes from knowing a team’s needs. Not every team drafts for need, but those that do give you a major insight into their strategy. Paying attention to what a team considers a need can help you drastically shrink your potential player pool.

Before the draft begins, take some time to look at each team’s roster, coaching style and main competition. What was their biggest issue the year before? Where do they currently look deficient? Answering these questions leads you to figuring out where to gamble when betting on the draft.

Know Whom to Trust

Having success with your NFL draft bets is all about information and how you put that to good use. To get good information, you need to be following sources who cover teams and the NFL every day. If you want to try to make a bet on the Eagles’ draft choice, check out what the Philadelphia media has written and said.

You’ll likely find clues as to which way the team might be leaning. In some situations, the team might tip its hand without tipping its hand, as they’re trying to help the local press and get some positive coverage for themselves with their fans.

At the same time, you cannot trust blindly. Before trusting any piece of information, make sure it comes from a reputable source with a strong history. A report that you can trust includes a link you can click, contact information to report errors and ways to contact their reporters. If a site is missing any of that vital information, you probably want to look for another source.

Betting on the NFL Draft really is more of a science than betting on NFL games. You should always be doing your research anyway, but this is the time when it matters most.