As the first team eliminated from playoff contention after their Week 12 defeat against the Detroit Lions, the New York Giants don’t have much to play for for the rest of the season. The priority for New York will be evaluating Mike Kafka as a long-term head coaching option and developing the chemistry between franchise quarterback Jaxson Dart and his supporting cast.
One of those pieces that will be critical for the Giants’ future is tight end Theo Johnson. The 24-year-old Canadian was a fourth-round pick last season and has emerged as one of Dart’s most trusted targets in his second season.
New York will take on the New England Patriots tonight at 8:15 p.m. ET in the finale of Week 13’s slate. After missing the last two weeks with a concussion, Dart is set to return to the field.
The Giants are 7.5-point underdogs for tonight’s clash at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the point total set to 46.5. Below, I’ve detailed my favorite prop bets centered around Johnson.
Best Theo Johnson Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Theo Johnson 40+ Receiving Yards (+122)
Johnson has started to heat up more as the season has gone on, with all three of his 60-plus-yard performances coming in the last six weeks. He’s coming off of a three-catch, 77-yard effort against the Detroit Lions, and while Jameis Winston started that game instead of Dart, he shouldn’t drop off too much with Dart back under center. While Johnson might be less effective on deep targets under Dart than Winston, he’s received the second-most targets of any tight end on passes thrown between 10 and 19 yards in the air, where Dart has posted the league’s 11th-highest passer rating.
Despite a solid defense overall, the Patriots haven’t been good against opposing tight ends. This season, they’ve allowed the ninth-most yards to the position and given up a fairly efficient 10 yards per catch. Pro Football Focus projects Johnson to mostly face linebacker coverage, and New England’s linebacker depth drops off massively after Robert Spillane. The same can be said for the Patriots’ safeties: while Jaylinn Hawkins has been the 10th-best in coverage of 92 qualified safeties at PFF, his partner Craig Woodson ranks just 64th. New York employs a lot of two-TE sets with both Johnson and Daniel Bellinger, which could get Johnson against some of New England’s weaker defenders.
Theo Johnson 1st First Down (+1200)
Besides over/unders and reception lines, the rest of Johnson’s props are long shots, so I might as well go with a value play. In each game that the Giants have been coached by interim boss Mike Kafka, they have received the ball first, once because Kafka opted to receive and once because Detroit deferred, and Mike Vrabel has deferred five of the six times that the Patriots have won the coin toss. Thus, regardless of which team wins the toss, it’s likely that New York will possess the ball first and give Johnson an opportunity to move the chains early.
He’s far from the only threat to pick up the game’s first fresh set of downs, but he’s arguably the Giants’ most reliable receiver in do-or-die situations. All in all, 22 of his 39 receptions have gone for a first down, the highest rate of any New York player with at least 30 targets this season. Plus, while he hasn’t ben the most efficient in the opening frame, he’s received his joint-most targets in the first quarter. He’s also more likely to receive a pass earlier in the drive — 30 of his 60 targets have come in between the Giants’ 21-yard-line and the 50 — and on third down, when pass attempts are most frequently thrown beyond the line to gain.
