The Quick Answer
Two Underdog NFL picks today for the Week 2 Sunday slate: Rico Dowdle (PIT) Higher 8.5 rush attempts at New England and Ashton Jeanty (LV) Higher 62.5 rushing yards at the Chargers. Dowdle needs nine carries after getting eight on 39 snaps in Week 1, and Jeanty needs about 15 at his current clip after 77% of his Week 1 rushing yards came after contact. The full case for each, the video and the current Underdog offer with code OS1 are below.
Both of my Underdog Fantasy plays for the Week 2 Sunday slate are running backs, and both are volume bets priced off a Week 1 box score that tells you less than it looks like it does. The Steelers play at 1 p.m. ET in Foxborough and the Raiders kick at 4:05 p.m. ET in Inglewood. The one I keep coming back to is the Pittsburgh carry count, because the box score that scared people off it is the reason the number is where it is.
The Picks: Week 2 Sunday, September 20
| Player | Stat | Line | Call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rico Dowdle (PIT) | Rush attempts | 8.5 | Higher |
| Ashton Jeanty (LV) | Rushing yards | 62.5 | Higher |
Rico Dowdle Higher 8.5 Rush Attempts
Do not let the Week 1 box score fool you. Dowdle carried it eight times for 15 yards in the 20-13 win over Atlanta, and that line is why 8.5 is on the board. The snaps say something else: he played 39 to Jaylen Warren's (PIT) 25. Warren was the busier back on touches, 10 carries and five catches on six targets to Dowdle's eight and two, so the carries did not follow the snaps in Week 1. The read is that they will. Dowdle is the base-down back in this offense, and 39 snaps at that job is a lot of chances to hand him the ball in a game where Pittsburgh threw it 40 times with Aaron Rodgers (PIT) despite leading for most of the second half. That is a pass-first offense, which is the honest risk here, but it also means eight carries came on a day the run game was an afterthought.
The other side of it is the front he draws. New England gave up three runs of 10-plus yards to Seattle in Week 1, all three on first down: two designed carries from rookie Jadarian Price (SEA), a 13 and a 12, plus a 14-yard Drew Lock (SEA) scramble in the fourth quarter. Price finished 10-for-52, a 5.2 yards-per-carry clip, and strip the two long ones and his other eight went for 27, a 3.4 average. For a carries number, that still works: the bet is volume, not efficiency, and that front is a small tiebreaker, not the case. Pittsburgh comes in as a road underdog, and Michael Pittman Jr. (PIT) has been ruled out with a foot injury, which takes 58 of Rodgers' 221 passing yards from Week 1 off the field. Even as a dog, I think that pushes this offense harder toward the ground game, and nine carries for the base-down back is a low bar on a day the Steelers want to run.
OddsShopper's live odds screen shows where the sportsbooks hang Dowdle's carry number: the live NFL rush attempts odds page puts every major book's line side by side, the same odds comparison the NFL Underdog picks strategy guide walks through before you enter a card.
Ashton Jeanty Higher 62.5 Rushing Yards
Jeanty went for 147 scrimmage yards and two scores on 29 touches in the 27-13 win over Miami: 23 carries for 102 rushing yards and six catches for 45 with both touchdowns. The number that actually matters for a rushing line is this one: 79 of those 102 rushing yards came after contact. That is 77% of his ground production earned after somebody already had a hand on him. The guy set the college record for missed tackles forced, so it is not a surprise, but it is the whole case, because it means the yards do not depend on a hole being there.
He now draws a Chargers defense that got walked out of its own building by Arizona as a double-digit favorite. The Cardinals ran it 34 times for 116 yards against them, put up 393 yards of offense and held the ball for 37:31, and Los Angeles came out of it ranked 27th in defensive DVOA and 25th in defensive success rate for Week 1. The yards per carry Arizona got were ordinary. The volume was not, and volume is what this number needs. Jeanty cleared 62.5 on volume alone last week, with a long carry of 15 yards and nothing that would count as a breakaway. At his 4.4 yards a carry he needs about 15 attempts to get there, and he got 23 in a game Las Vegas controlled for nearly 35 minutes. The risk is the script, a game where the Raiders are chasing and he sees 11 carries. The contact profile is why a quieter day still gets there: those yards do not need a hole, and a defense that just let an opponent keep the ball for 37 minutes is the kind that hands out carries.
If the settlement is new to you, player props betting explained covers how a line like this gets built and graded, and the live NFL rushing yards odds board shows what the books think of the same number.
Watch the full breakdown of both plays:
How Keep Your Million Works
Keep Your Million is Underdog's free-to-play survival game. Every eligible customer, all new users and most existing users, receives a virtual $1,000,000 pot in bonus funds, and the job is to protect it across up to 20 questions.
- Pick a question. Example: will Patrick Mahomes throw for Higher or Lower than 275 passing yards?
- Split your million. Drag a slider to divide the pot between Higher and Lower: 100% on one side, 50/50, or anything in between. All the money has to go somewhere.
- Lock it in. Once you submit before the game starts, it is locked and cannot be changed.
- Keep your winnings. When the game settles, keep whatever you put on the winning side. That amount becomes your pot for the next question.
- Run it back. Make a pick for up to 20 questions. Survive all 20 and cash out whatever is left in Underdog bonus funds. Hit zero and you are out.
The Deposit Match
Underdog Fantasy is also running a first-deposit match. The two lists below are the match tiers, not the map of where Underdog is available, and the size of the match depends on which tier your state sits in. In the full-product tier (AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, DE, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, MI, MN, MS, MO, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WV, WI, WY) the match is 50% of your first deposit up to $1,000 in bonus funds. In the predictions-only tier (CT, HI, ID, IA, LA, ME, MT, WA) the match is 25% of your first deposit up to $250 in bonus funds, and Underdog has said that percentage and launch may still change.
New users can sign up with code OS1 and get a 50% first-deposit match up to $1,000 in bonus funds (25% up to $250 in CT, HI, ID, IA, LA, ME, MT and WA).
Use code OS1 and get up to $1,000 in bonus cash
Trading involves risk, including total loss on positions. Content is promotional and not a recommendation to trade. Promotion issued by affiliate. Terms apply. Underdog is available in 49 of 50 U.S. states. Concerned with your play? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
