Jaxson Dart In The First Round And More QB Predictions, Best Bets For NFL Draft 2025

In today's Betting Life Newsletter:

I’m still coming down from Rory McIlroy’s heartpounding win at the Masters. Seriously, the final round had more twists and turns than an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Thankfully, he was able to exorcise his demons time and time again, dialing up a stroke of brilliance almost every time his back was against the wall.

Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Still, the sports calendar rolls on. We’re nearly through the first month of the MLB season, and the NBA playoffs start in earnest on Saturday. We’ve got some banger matchups lined up—particularly in the Western Conference—and there has already been some significant movement in the betting markets.

Of course, we’re also now just one week away from the start of the NFL Draft. The first round commences next Thursday, and the rumor mill is officially in full swing.

Today, let’s dive into one of the recent bets I’ve made for Thursday’s draft, as well as a few different matchup bets to consider in the NBA Playoffs.

DRAFT RUMORS FROM THE PAST 15 YEARS

What’s going on around the NFL and more with our merry band of sports nerds!

📈 Updated wide receiver rankings for the 2025 NFL Draft class. Kyle Williams enters the top 12.

🔮 It’s mock draft season, y’all. The latest from Freedman.

💸 Also, Freedman keeps updating his best bets for the NFL Draft.

️✅ NFL Draft fact or fiction. Ian Hartitz tackles some of the biggest question marks on some of the draft’s most intriguing prospects.

🎟 The NFL has invited 17 players to attend the draft. Are all 17 first-round picks? Kendall Valenzuela breaks it down.

❗More mock draft madness! Emory Hunt joins Kendall and Thor to preview the first round.

⚾ He’s baaaacck. Spencer Strider makes his first start in more than a year. Unfortunately, he couldn’t help the Braves’ offense.

🏒 Don’t forget about the NHL! Biggest favorites—and most popular bets—to take home the Stanley Cup.

NFL Draft Bet: Over 2.5 QBs Selected in First Round (-475; DraftKings)

I know, I know—way to go out on a huge limb here, LaMarca. Writing up a -475 prop is definitely not sexy … but that doesn’t mean it’s not profitable. Remember, short odds don’t necessarily mean that a bet is bad. It’s all about the odds. -475 translates to an implied probability of 82.61%, so if you think it’s more likely than that that three quarterbacks are drafted in the first round, this bet would still be a value.

At this point, it seems like two quarterbacks in the first round are absolute slam dunks. Cam Ward is likely going to go first overall to the Titans. Shedeur Sanders’ stock is slipping, but he will still almost certainly be selected at some point on Day 1.

That means we just need one more quarterback for this prop to go over, and I think there are two legit candidates. Jaxson Dart is someone who has risen throughout the predraft process, which is not uncommon for a quarterback. There has been plenty of buzz with Dart going in Round 1, and Todd McShay even had him coming off the board before Sanders in a recent mock draft. He had the Saints selecting Dart at No. 9, and the Browns ultimately trading back into the first round to select Sanders at No. 15.

There’s also a chance that Tyler Shough could sneak into Day 1. He recently had a meeting with the Giants, and The Athletic’s Dianna Russini has reported that he is very much on the mind of NFL front offices:

The quarterback I have heard being discussed in NFL circles more than any other lately is Louisville's Tyler Shough.

What I'm hearing, and how it could affect his draft stock, on Scoop City: pic.twitter.com/zP7PUsUSNm
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) April 15, 2025

One thing that you can always count on during the draft is quarterbacks going earlier than they should. We saw that last year with six QBs coming off the board in the first 12 picks, and while this class is nowhere near as talented, there are still plenty of teams looking for a franchise signal-caller.

Don’t discount the odds that a QB-needy team trades into the back half of the first round to select someone like Dart or Shough. Selecting a passer in the first round gives those teams a fifth-year option, which is extremely valuable at the QB position. Ultimately, I put the odds of three QBs going at more like 90%, and I think the odds of four are about 50/50. This prop was as low as -325 last week, and it should continue to rise heading into draft day.

THOR NYSTROM’S TWO-ROUND MOCK DRAFT

NBA Playoffs Best Bets

Houston Rockets (+160) vs. Golden State Warriors

I don’t think we’ve ever seen a No. 2 seed get as little respect in the betting markets as Houston is getting currently. The Rockets are a pretty sizable underdog in its first-round matchup. They’re +2600 to win the Western Conference, giving them just the seventh-shortest odds. They drop all the way to No. 11 in the NBA Finals market, going off the board at +8000.

On one hand, I understand why people are skeptical. They’re a young team with minimal playoff experience, and they lack a true superstar. They don’t even have a set-in-stone closing lineup, so they’re not entirely sure what their best five-man lineup is. Against a Warriors’ squad with a championship pedigree, it’s not unreasonable for them to be underdogs.

That said, I think the Rockets are an awful matchup for Golden State. They are young and hungry, and they get after it defensively for the full 48 minutes. Amen Thompson was seemingly designed in a lab to shut down perimeter players, and Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks are solid defenders as well.

We saw the formula to beat the Warriors on Tuesday. They managed to escape against the Grizzlies, but they were entirely reliant on Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler to carry the offense. Draymond Green brings very little to the table at this point, while Steve Kerr has benched Jonathan Kuminga in their last two “must-win” games. If Thompson and Co. can limit Curry, where are the points going to come from?

The Rockets were able to do exactly that the last time these two teams met. Curry finished with just three points on 1-for-10 shooting, and the Warriors were limited to 96 points in a loss.

Perhaps the Warriors' experience will win out in the end, and the fact that the first-round series are so spaced out will definitely help them. That said, I don’t think this is going to be an easy series by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll take the value with the young legs and their tenacious defense.

Los Angeles Clippers (-120) vs. Denver Nuggets

The Clippers opened as underdogs vs. the Nuggets, but they have been steamed all the way up to -120. While that makes them a lot less appealing, I still think they’re the clear team to target in this matchup.

That feels a bit weird to say in a series against the best player in the world. Nikola Jokic may not take home the fourth MVP award of his career, but he probably should. What he did this season was nothing short of remarkable. He did everything for the Nuggets, averaging a triple-double with 29.6 points, 10.2 assists, and 12.7 rebounds per game. He also stabilized the team amid all their injuries and internal turmoil, and it wouldn’t shock me if he sold concessions and swept up the stadium after the game. Ultimately, Jokic has entered Wilt Chamberlain territory: people in later generations will look back at his statistics and wonder how it was possible.

And yet, I still think the Clippers are the better team. Far better, in fact. The team started the year slowly with Kawhi Leonard on the sidelines, and he was heavily limited when he first returned to the lineup. When the team finally took the training wheels off, they became one of the best teams in the league. They’re fourth in Net Rating over the second half of the season, and they’re first in that department over their past 15 games. For comparison, the Nuggets are 19th and 18th in those respective splits.

While Jokic is the best player in this series, the Clippers may have the next four. Not only has Leonard played remarkably well, but James Harden, Ivica Zubac, and Norman Powell have all done their jobs at a high level. The same cannot be said for the Nuggets, who have struggled to get much from their supporting cast down the stretch.

Trusting the Clippers is understandably difficult. Leonard is always seemingly one day away from popping up on the injury report, while Harden has disappeared at times during the playoffs. But this team is firing on all cylinders at the moment, and as long as Leonard stays healthy, they should be able to get past a Nuggets squad that has faded down the stretch.

MORE BETS FOR THE NBA PLAYOFFS