Week 4 NFL Passing Yards Leader Odds: Picks, Best Bets & Longshots

Joe Burrow (+900) is the current favorite to lead the league in passing yards on Sunday.

Week 4 NFL Passing Yards Leader Odds

Week 3 Review

As I admitted in the rushing article last week, I made mistakes based on priors, and the same applies to Justin Herbert and Mike McDaniel.

Terrible pick last week, bad process, and I need to reduce bias in evaluating potential outcomes.

Matthew Stafford passed for 390 yards against the Broncos in a game that changed leads in the final minute and went down to the final play.

In the opening three weeks, the leading passer has been involved in two overtime games and a game that changed leads in the final minute.

Passing Yards Leader Betting Strategy

Game state is the strongest predictor of peak passing outcomes.

Back-and-forth games that go down to the final couple of minutes bring peak aggressiveness from both teams for ceiling results.

Trailing teams are also forced to pass more, but if the lead is large enough, the opposing team hinders the peak passing total by slowing the game down with rushing and running out the clock.

Last season, the weekly passing leader averaged 375.4 passing yards, ranging from 300 to 474.

In 2025, 10 of the weekly passing leaders were on the winning team.

More importantly, eight of those were by one score or less.

Passing volume is driven by game state working in the opposite direction of rushing, but a competitive back-and-forth game provides a runway for the highest passing ceiling.

In 2025, six quarterbacks threw for 400 yards. Five of them lost.

A team that trails early abandons the run, which benefits quarterbacks projected for fewer passing yards.

Week 4 Shortlist

Looking at Sunday, several games are currently lined under a field goal, including Giants-Cardinals, Jaguars-Bengals, Cowboys-Texans, Broncos-49ers, and I even think Jets-Bears and Chiefs-Raiders should be considered for shootouts.

Drake Maye faces a negative game script and matchup against the Bills' secondary, but the Patriots offense is lost, and we are not chasing another struggling unit this week.

Tyson Bagent went 2-2 in his four starts on a team coached by Matt Eberflus, and if I were confident in pushback from the New York Jets, his odds are very intriguing at 50/1.

Most Week 4 Passing Yards Prediction (Sunday): Joe Burrow (+900)

The Jacksonville Jaguars have been an absolute freight train since Week 11 of last season, and it's as if no one cares.

The Jaguars are 11-1 in that stretch, have outscored opponents by 199 points, and have won eight of the 11 games by two or more touchdowns, including 6 by 20 or more points.

The Jaguars are averaging 29.3 points over that stretch and have scored 23 or more points in every victory.

In all likelihood, the Jaguars are going to have success against this Bengals defense that just gave up 30 points to the Steelers.

Jacksonville's defense has not allowed more than 1 passing touchdown, and the defensive numbers look solid.

However, the opposing quarterbacks they have faced are not a list to brag about shutting down.

The following are quarterbacks the Jaguars have faced in that stretch since Week 11 of last season: Justin Herbert without his bookend tackles, Jacoby Brissett, Riley Leonard, Brady Cook, Phillip Rivers, Cam Ward (x2), Bo Nix (x2), Deshaun Watson, and Drake Maye without his mojo.

This game could be appointment viewing and could provide the exact game state that produces ceiling games, except it adds the bonus of efficient offenses.

Joe Burrow has been fine to open the season, averaging 7.2 yards per attempt, but that is actually really good considering he is a notoriously slow starter.

Over the past five years, Burrow has averaged 6.3 yards per attempt and 218 passing yards per game in Weeks 1, 2, and 3.

Regardless of what narratives are out there, the Jaguars are a pass-funnel.

The defense ranked third in success rate against the run last year and remains solid this year.

Given the Bengals' strengths, this projects to be a high dropback game for Burrow.

The Bengals have been historically pass-heavy, ranking near the top of pass-rate over expectation with Zac Taylor and Burrow.

Two weeks ago against the Jaguars, Nix averaged 9.5 yards per attempt, the second-most efficient game of his career.

In December against the Jaguars, Nix totaled 352 passing yards as the Broncos gave up 34 points and were forced to pass 45 times.

Burrow and Nix aren't in the same stratosphere of quarterbacks.

This is a major step up in class for the Jaguars, and this could turn into a shootout with two explosive offenses.

Week 4 Passing Yards Longshot Bet: Tyson Bagent Passing Ladders

• Tyson Bagent Over 199.5 Passing Yards (-115)
• Tyson Bagent 225+ Passing Yards (+170)
• Tyson Bagent 250+ Passing Yards (+325)

This assumes that Bagent starts on Sunday over Case Keenum.

This is a bet on Ben Johnson and the system that he built being more important than the quarterback in the system.

Johnson does not hide the fact that he wants to set records for scoring points, and this provides another opportunity for him to state his case as the top offensive mind in the game.

Keenum completed 70% of his passes against a very good Eagles secondary, and the Jets rank in the bottom half of the league in dropback success rate allowed.

That includes games against the Titans and Packers, who rank 25th and 28th in dropback success rate.

The Bears have a solid offensive line, great receiving options, good running backs, and an elite play-caller.

The better the offense performs in these games in Caleb Williams' absence can provide Johnson more leverage to get Williams to keep his game simple.

Bagent is a competent quarterback, and believe it or not, I believe he has a higher floor than Williams in this offense if he takes what is given to him.

In the fourth quarter last week, we saw the Jets offense try to score, and Geno Smith had success racking up 156 yards on 17 pass attempts, after attempting a single pass in the third quarter.

As odd as it sounds, I have more confidence in the Jets offense pushing back in this game than I did with the Eagles last week.

NFL Weekly Passing Yards Leaders