Just one game remains in the NFL season, as the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks will face off at 6:30 p.m. ET tonight with the Lombardi Trophy on the line. When training camp opened some six months ago, neither of these teams could’ve realistically seen this run coming, but here they are, 60 minutes away from a title.
For the biggest game of the season, DraftKings is also offering its biggest prize pool yet for the King of the End Zone promotion, as eligible entrants who use their single-use token on the player who ends up scoring the game’s longest touchdown will walk away with a share of $4 million in bonus bets. Eligible bets are touchdown scorer bets with a minimum $5 wager. If a receiver — for instance, the Seahawks’ Rashid Shaheed — is chosen and he ends up scoring as a member of the Special Teams unit, both users who chose Shaheed and users who chose Seattle D/ST will be paid out their share of the bonus bets.
The bet doesn’t have to hit: for instance, if a user bets on Kenneth Walker III to score the first touchdown of the game and he ends up scoring the second touchdown but has the longest score of the night, that user would still be paid out their share of bets, proportional to the number of users who chose Walker.
The three players with the shortest Anytime TD Scorer odds are the Walker (-190), his Seahawks teammate Jaxon Smith-Njigba (-110), and Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson (+140). Below, I’ll break down my favorite qualifying prop bet for all three of the favorites.
Kenneth Walker III First TD Scorer (+350)
With Zach Charbonnet out for the season with a torn ACL, Walker is Seattle’s running game. He’s been tremendous so far these playoffs, turning 38 carries into 178 yards and a playoffs-high four touchdowns, and he scored the first touchdown of the game in the NFC Championship Game against the Los Angeles Rams. There’s a lot to like about Walker’s game: he’s efficient as both a runner and a receiver, posting the highest overall and running grades by Pro Football Focus (PFF) standards, as well as the 11th-highest receiving grade. He only scored five touchdowns during the regular season — Charbonnet was the Seahawks’ preferred option in scoring position — but they came from 10 total rushes inside the 10-yard line, so he was ruthlessly efficient.
New England’s defense could provide him with a decent opportunity to score. Though the Patriots have been solid against the run overall, allowing the sixth-fewest total yards, the 13th-fewest yards per attempt, and the fourth-fewest touchdowns, that’s predominantly because they were the league’s best tackling team once they actually got to a running back. That requires New England get to Walker, the fifth-most elusive high-volume running back in football, before he gets into open space. It won’t be easy to bring Walker down, either; he ranked second in missed tackles forced this season.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba Anytime TD Scorer (-110)
On plays when Walker didn’t run the ball, the NFC Championship Game was the JSN show. In clutch situation after clutch situation, Sam Darnold threw it to the Offensive Player of the Year, and he delivered, turning his 12 targets into 10 catches, 153 yards, and a touchdown. All in all, he found the end zone in 10 of his 19 games between the regular season and the playoffs, and his touchdown-scoring rate actually went up after Seattle traded for Rashid Shaheed at the deadline, from 0.4 touchdowns per game prior to Shaheed’s acquisition to 0.7 per game thereafter.
Meanwhile, the Patriots’ secondary should be pretty gettable. Though all three of New England’s corners — Christian González, Marcus Jones, and Carlton Davis III — all rank within PFF’s top 25, Jones allowed eight touchdowns as the nearest defender in coverage, tied for the second-most in football. All in all, the Patriots allowed the 15th-most passing touchdowns in the regular season, as well as the ninth-highest completion percentage, and once he gets the ball in his hands, Smith-Njigba is as dangerous as they come. Plus, though it has been excellent at pressuring the quarterback in the playoffs, New England ranked near the bottom of the league in regular-season pressure rate, which could give Smith-Njigba’s deeper route tree time to develop.
Rhamondre Stevenson 2+ TD’s (+900)
Stevenson took a backseat to rookie TreVeyon Henderson for much of the season, but when it’s mattered most, he’s been the Patriots’ weapon of choice, taking a season-high 25 carries during the AFC Championship Game against the Denver Broncos. That performance won’t necessarily be an indication of his usage tonight — the blizzard conditions that blanketed Empower Field at Mile High made passing almost impossible — but he should get many more touches than Henderson. When he scores, he tends to score in spurts: in three of the five games in which he’s scored a touchdown this season, he found the end zone at least twice, making +900 odds extremely friendly.
To be fair, his odds are so long because Seattle’s run defense is the best in the league, allowing the third-fewest rushing yards on the fewest yards per attempt and the second-fewest rushing touchdowns during the regular season. However, the Seahawks were somewhat more vulnerable to dual-threat backs, allowing the sixth-most receiving yards to the position, and Stevenson was the 17th-ranked receiving back among the 55 qualifiers at PFF. He also was the league’s best pass-blocking back, which should keep him on the field even in obvious passing situations.
How to Play King of the End Zone
- Opt in to receive your King of the End Zone token in the Promotions page.
- Bet on a Prop bet ($5 minimum wager) in the TD Scorers market on DraftKings Sportsbook and apply your token.
- If the player you wagered on with your token applied scores the longest touchdown in Super Bowl LX, you win a share of $4 million in bonus bets paid out the next day.
