NFL Player Props Recap, Strategy & Takeaways: 2023 DFS Pass (Fantasy Football)

The 2023 regular season has officially come to an end! With that, it’s time to turn our attention to the NFL Playoffs, but before we wrap up the 2023 betting and DFS season, let’s take a look back at the season from a player props perspective.

In this article, I’ll analyze our results as well as some takeaways that might be beneficial for future seasons in the DFS Pass.

2023 Regular Season Recap

Record: 104-77 (57.5%)
Profit: +11.1 units

In 2023, we took 181 official player props in the DFS Pass for a 57.5% hit rate and an 11.1 unit profit. For reference, a $25 unit bettor would have profited $277.50 while a $100 unit bettor would have made $1,110. All in all, it was a successful season especially when you compare those numbers to our 2022 data:

Record: 98-82 (55%)
Profit: +8.31 units

When looking at these numbers, I think it’s important to try to identify why things improved year over year – Pure luck? Randomness? Betting more overs or more unders? Etc. It is important to acknowledge that there is some luck involved in this (player injuries, etc.), but having a sound process is the key to this being a profitable endeavor year-over-year.

We’ll dive into our process next.

Player Prop Selection

Overs Record: 46-41 (52.9%)
Unders Record: 58-36 (61.7%)

As you can see in the record above, we were far more successful betting unders this year than overs. While the week-to-week results vary and there were weeks where we did well with overs compared to unders, over a big enough sample, unders were far more profitable. A few reasons why I think that’s likely the case:

1. Unders give us outs to player injuries.

No one ever wishes injury upon any player, but it’s sadly part of the game. Going back to my data from 2018 to 2021, just 2% of NFL games are injury-free. In other words, we should expect injuries to happen in this sport. Again, no one in the fantasy space wishes that upon any player; it just happens. A player who pulls their hamstring or tweaks their ankle is at risk of leaving the game early or performing at a lower level than they would have injury-free.

2. Playing time and coaching decisions can be volatile.

When we forecast the NFL, it’s our job to try to understand what the NFL coaches will do, not what they should do. That, of course, is a tall task for anyone. On a week-to-week basis, it’s really hard to know specifically when/if a role change is coming. At times, the market can be overconfident in playing time and usage.

3. Game scripts are tough to predict.

In the NFL, we can use Vegas spreads to help us identify how a game might go. For example, if a team is an underdog by 8+ points, we can probably project that team to throw more than run in a negative game script. But at times, games stay closer than we think or blowouts can happen as well, which of course, alters a team’s play-calling tendencies. There’s a ton of parody in today’s NFL, and that makes predicting game flow somewhat difficult.

4. Playing performance is often volatile.

For an over to hit, we need a lot of things to go right. The correct play calls, a QB needs to make the right read, the O-line needs to block correctly, our player needs to catch the ball and force a missed tackle, etc. As human beings, we like betting on events to happen instead of rooting against events happening. The reality, however, is that player performance is highly volatile on a week-to-week basis and players “fail” more often than we realize, at least relative to high-end expectations.

Takeaways & Strategy Moving Forward

Through two seasons in the DFS Pass, we’ve been able to churn out a profitable strategy using some of our premium tools and projections, matchup data, and more. Using 2023’s numbers, it’s easy to see that there are still a few edges to be had in betting player props:

1. Betting unders will generally yield a higher hit rate.

As mentioned above, it’s easier to find paths for unders to hit in the NFL. This, of course, does not mean that we’ll be blindly firing on all unders moving forward. At times, there is an edge in certain markets for betting unders. However, I do we’ll take more unders than overs in the 2024 season.

2. Having access to multiple books is key.

Our numbers above are not from any one single sportsbook. If you live in a state where multiple books are legal, it’s important to understand that even a slight change in odds from one book to the next (let’s say -115 vs. -130 for example) can yield different returns on your investment at the end of the year. Line shopping remains crucial to being a profitable bettor.

3. Volume is important to help mitigate variance.

As with anything, it’s difficult to have many takeaways or draw conclusions from a small sample size. The larger the sample, the stronger the data. If you’re only getting down on a few props per week, it’s more likely to result in variance on both a week-to-week basis as well as a year-to-year basis. Moving into 2024, we’ll likely be trying to at least maintain our volume from this season, if not increase it in an effort to mitigate variance and lean into our sound process.

If you’re looking to jump in with us, we’ll still be taking some props throughout the 2023-2024 playoffs. You can get those in the DFS Pass. Be sure to stay connected in our #props channel in the Fantasy Footballers Discord so you can get the lines we take and connect with other FootClan members to discuss strategy, props, and other wagers!