american-football | Monday, April 25, 2022 6:51 AM (Revised at: Thursday, April 28, 2022 7:16 PM)

2022 NFL Draft Best Bets: April 28th-30th

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US Sports contributor

It’s time to reveal the Top-5 2022 NFL Draft Best Bets to make as our resident U.S sports expert Ej Garr offers a handful of predictions for the highly anticipated 3-day event.

Might there be a big move that shakes up the entire direction of players’ careers or will the draft order remain the same without interruption? Always expect the unexpected but let’s see what we can find to set the tome for the upcoming NFL season.

2022 NFL Draft Best Bets

April 28 – 30, 2022

Total Defensive Players Drafted in the 1st Round – Over 15.5 Players (1.80)
Total Offensive Lineman Drafted in the 1st Round – Under 7.5 (1.83)
First Wide Receiver Taken in the NFL Draft – Garrett Wilson (2.05)
Total Wide Receivers Taken in the 1st Round – Under 5.5 (3.02)
Total Number of Big Ten Players Taken in the 1st Round – Over 6.5 (1.83)

Odds as at 8am 25th April 2022. Odds may now differ.

NFL Draft Order – Top 10 selections, as of Monday, April 25

Jacksonville Jaguars
Detroit Lions
Houston Texans
New York Jets
New York Giants
Carolina Panthers
New York Giants (via Chicago Bears)
Atlanta Falcons
Seattle Seahawks (via Denver Broncos)
New York Jets (via Seattle Seahawks)

Total Defensive Players Drafted in the 1st Round

Well, most of the chatter about this year’s opening round of the draft seems to suspect that defense will be the call to order for many teams. Should the top-3 teams in the draft order stay as is, they are all expected to look at the defensive side of the ball unless Houston takes an offensive lineman.

Amazingly, most mock drafts are showing edge rushers or linemen (OL & DL) consuming the first 7 picks of the draft. Cornerbacks, safeties, linebackers, and defensive linemen should make up most of the 1st round so we go with the Over 15.5 defensive players taken to complete the first round.

Total Defensive players taken in the 1st Round
Over 15.5 players
Odds 1.80

Total Offensive Lineman Drafted in the 1st Round

Yes, there is always a need for offensive lineman and that will be the case until we all die. However, I honestly just don’t see a total of 8 offensive linemen going that early this season because I see 5 at most. We can peruse the 500 mock drafts and it just comes down to what I think teams will need to address, not them!

I see 5 offensive linemen going in the 1st round and at 1.83 I can handle backing the words with a little action on the Under 7.5 OL.

Total Offensive Linemen taken in the 1st Round
Under 7.5 players
Odds 1.83

First Wide Receiver Taken in the NFL Draft

I am of the mindset that Wilson is the best receiver in this year’s draft and had Jameson Williams not fallen with the knee injury in last year’s NCAA title game he certainly could have held this spot. At 2.05 and the Packers also hinting they might look to move up in the draft order with a trade. Green Bay, or any other team for that matter, could ask the Jets (4th & 10th) or the Giants (5th & 7th) for one of their combined four top-10 draft picks to take a shot at Wilson.

First Wide Receiver taken in the NFL Draft
Garret Wilson
Odds 2.05

Total Wide Receivers Taken in the 1st Round

How is that for some steamy value? The line setters are daring us to bet on the fact that there will only be 5 wide receivers taken in the 1st round of this year’s NFL Draft. To that, I say there are so many other needs that need to be filled early in the draft because the depth of this year’s corps of receivers is thin.

I already mentioned Wilson and Williams as the proposed top-2 WRs in the draft and the talent at wideout is not as strong as we have seen in recent years. A player like George Pickens might be the difference in cashing our tickets as I surmise he will fall to the 2nd round because of the ACL injury that cost him last season.

Total Wide Receivers taken in the 1st Round
Under 5.5 players
Odds 3.02

Total Number of Big Ten Players Taken in the 1st Round

Even though Big Ten Conference teams flopped in bowl season it doesn’t mean they won’t be producing a ton of NFL talent. I have gone over so many mock drafts that I lost count and I agree with so many others in this case. I can see as many as 8 players from the conference hearing their names called on the first day of the NFL Draft.

The Jaguars have all but announced that they are planning to take Aidan Hutchinson out of Michigan as the first pick of this year’s draft. He will be the first name on the list of Big Ten players that end up playing in the NFL this upcoming campaign and there will be plenty more to follow him.