The first playoff game of Super Wild Card Weekend features the Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans, and our team of betting experts have made a wide variety of player prop bets for this matchup.
Will Joe Flacco’s magic continue in the postseason, and how will C.J. Stroud perform in his first career playoff start? We break it all down as we give out our top Browns vs. Texans player prop bets.
Top Browns vs. Texans Player Prop Bets
Joe Flacco Over 268.5 Passing Yards (-115 at ESPN BET)
Ben Rolfe: Here are Flacco’s passing yards in his last four games: 309, 368, 374, 311.
Included in that is 368 yards at an average of 8.8 yards per attempt with a passer rating of 96.1. The Texans have been good against opposing QBs in the last two weeks, but they’ve had their troubles against some good passing games and some surprising ones.
This season, the Texans have allowed over 300 passing yards to the Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars (Trevor Lawrence), Cincinnati Bengals (Joe Burrow), New Orleans Saints (Derek Carr), and Atlanta Falcons (Desmond Ridder). Flacco has every chance of doing that again this week to a team allowing an average of 253.4 passing yards per game to opponents.
Kareem Hunt Under 24.5 Rushing Yards (-110 at DraftKings)
Kyle Soppe: Fading both backfields (or at least a piece of both) is something I rarely do because they aren’t correlated. That said, “rarely” isn’t “never,” and the numbers point strongly in this direction.
The Browns haven’t been shy about betting on Flacco to elevate their 2023 ceiling, as they have the second-highest pass rate over expectation since the veteran took the reins.
In a matchup against the second-best yards-per-carry defense in a weatherproof spot at NRG Stadium, why wouldn’t we expect Cleveland to open things up in this spot?
Kareem Hunt (battling a groin injury that cost him practice time early in the week) doesn’t have a 10-yard rush since Nov. 19, and Cleveland running backs as a whole have lost yardage on 13.1% of carries.
MORE: Browns vs. Texans Prediction, Odds, and Picks for Wild Card Weekend
The veteran RB hasn’t had more than 12 carries in a game in over two months, a trend he might have to reverse in this matchup.
One for the road when it comes to Hunt:
- Hunt: 23.7% of carries have come in the red zone
- Jerome Ford: 7.8% of carries have come in the red zone
Those carries hold fantasy football value, but they aren’t a major concern for me when targeting yardage props.
C.J. Stroud Over 242.5 Passing Yards (-114 at FanDuel)
Brian Blewis: This line is incredibly low because of the matchup against an elite Browns defense. But this defense didn’t travel well this season, as they allowed 29.6 points per game on the road, tied with the Broncos for the most in the NFL.
Meanwhile, this Browns defense is facing a quarterback in C.J. Stroud who has excelled at home. In eight home starts, Stroud threw for 310.8 yards per game, 17 TDs, and averaged 8.94 yards per attempt.
Stroud only went under this prop in two home games this past season — Week 6 against the Saints and a 26-3 blowout win over the Titans. Considering the value we’re getting because of the matchup, all of the trends say this is an overcorrection.
Devin Singletary Under 64.5 Rushing Yards (-115 at DraftKings)
Soppe: For the season, only 39% of yards gained against the Browns have come on the ground, the fifth-lowest mark in the NFL this season. Devin Singletary has taken over Houston’s backfield from Dameon Pierce, but are we sure he’s matchup-proof to the level that sportsbooks are giving him credit for?
This season, Singletary doesn’t have a carry of at least 25 yards, making a single splash play unlikely to undo this bet.
MORE: NFL Wild Card Round Predictions and Picks Against the Spread
My faith in the Browns’ front four has me thinking they’re making contact with Singletary around the line of scrimmage, and with the Texans’ lead back averaging just 1.6 yards per carry after contact — a rate that ranks behind luminaries like Miles Sanders and Joshua Kelley — efficiency is something that I’m more than happy to bet against.
Dalton Schultz Under 41.5 Receiving Yards (-114 at FanDuel)
Blewis: Dalton Schultz has gone over this yardage line in three of his four last games, but this seems like the right opportunity to sell.
Schultz is going up against a Browns defense that was by far the best at defending opposing tight ends this season — allowing six fewer targets and 162 fewer yards than the next-best team.
When these two teams last played each other back in Week 16 (with Davis Mills at QB), Schultz had eight catches for 61 yards. Considering his 11 targets were tied for a season high and more than the previous three weeks combined when Stroud was active, this performance seems like a total anomaly.
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