NFL Prop Betting - Brees vs. Roethlisberger Touchdowns

BetUS is known for having a wealth of sports exotics and propositional bets and as the NFL season approaches, there are nearly thousands of football props to examine and comb through.

One set of props that are offering a ton of value to sharp online betting handicappers is the player versus player props.

There is a regular season proposition matching up quarterbacks Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger for touchdown passes, with the line favouring Brees by 7.5 touchdowns.

Starting with last year’s numbers, Brees tied for the league-lead with 34 touchdown passes while Roethlisberger threw for 17. Obviously each year is different, but history is a good sample of what might come in the future.

7.5 may seem like a tall order but judging the two quarterbacks history, it really isn’t such a big spread.

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Brees has covered this number three of the last five years and was one touchdown away from being 4-1. Over the last five years, he’s averaged 27.8 touchdown passes per year while Roethlisberger has averaged 20.2.

But at a closer look, Roethlisberger had one season which was a huge aberration from the norm. In 2007, Roehtlisberger threw for 32 touchdowns but every other year in his career, he’s thrown either 17 or 18 touchdowns per season.

This year, there’s even more reason to believe he’ll be back in that range as the Steelers should be back to their normal, ground-and-pound offense.

The Steelers will get their 2008 first-round pick, Rashard Mendenhall, back into the line-up and he’s expected to shoulder a large chunk of the offense with Willie Parker. The Steelers relied on the pass more than normal last year (469 pass attempts) but now that the backfield is at full strength and the offensive line isn’t as rickety as it was last year, look for the Steelers to focus more on the run.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, don’t expect anything but pass, pass, pass from the Saints. Head coach Sean Payton talks about running the ball but he never walks the walk. The Saints are perennially in the basement for rush attempts and are perennially among the league leaders in pass attempts. As a matter of fact, Brees nearly replace Dan Marino’s name next to a few records last year since they passed so much.

The problem for the Saints is that their defence is still shaky, which means the Saints will need lots of points to win game. Their running game hasn’t changed much and a lot of people are sceptical that Pierre Thomas and Reggie Bush can carry the load, especially now that Bush is out with a bummed knee again.

That means the offense falls back on Brees shoulders, which should lead to lots of passing touchdowns.

While the Steelers play in the tough, rushing oriented AFC North, the Saints play in the high-scoring NFC South. With good weather and good offenses, the Saints will play in plenty of shootouts.

Following that logic, take Brees to lap Roethlisberger in the passing touchdown category and cover the 7.5