2020 NFL Draft Prop Bet: When Will Xavier McKinney Be Selected?

When will Alabama safety Xavier McKinney be selected during the 2020 NFL Draft? Let's explore the possibilities and break down the over/under.

Our 2020 NFL Draft prop bet series continues with a look at Alabama Safety Xavier McKinney. The 6-foot, 201-pound McKinney is Kevin Hanson's 25th ranked prospect for 2020 draft. McKinney attacks the run game with extreme confidence and is very good at finding a lane to the running back. He also has very good coverage skills for a strong safety. 

McKinney can guard receivers in man coverage and does well against tight ends and running backs. To put it simply, McKinney is always around the football and has a knack for making big plays in big moments. 

He finished his college career with 59 solo tackles, 13 tackles for loss, six sacks, five interceptions and five forced fumbles. McKinney made the 2019 All-SEC team and he was also a 2019 All-American. McKinney is a first-round lock. When you see him play, he is very easy to spot.

The William Hill Sportsbook has set the draft position number on McKinney at 24.5.

When pundits started looking over this draft class, the hard-hitting McKinney was well regarded as the second-best safety prospect behind LSU's Grant Delpit. Since then, medical red flags have dropped Delpit down and now McKinney projects to be the top safety selected. 

This will be one of the more interesting draft night prop bets, as I've seen McKinney's name connected to a whole bunch of teams in Round 1. In Jenny Vrentas' latest mock draft, she has McKinney going to the Dolphins with the 18th overall pick. The Atlanta Falcons have the 16th pick of the first round and SI Falcons reporter Malik Brown thinks McKinney could be a nice fit for Atlanta at 16. Brown writes that, "With uncertainty on how Neal will perform coming back and if the Falcons are invested in him, there should be a need at safety going into the draft. The Falcons should look no further than Alabama strong safety Xavier McKinney." The Dallas Cowboys have the 17th pick in the draft and they have needs in the secondary as well. 

In most cases, it looks like McKinney will be drafted well ahead of his prop number. It makes you wonder why his prop is set so high when so many teams in the teens have shown interest. When a bet looks too good to be true I always bet the other side. In this case, I would not go a full unit on the over, but I would fade the under on a smaller bet. 

There are rumors floating around that the Minnesota Vikings are looking to trade for Cleveland Browns wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. If the Vikings are unsuccessful in doing that, then they could aggressively try to move up ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles who have the 21st pick so they can draft LSU wide receiver Justin Jefferson. If this happens you may see fringe first-rounders like Tee Higgins and Jordan Love move up into the back end of the first round, causing McKinney to slide on draft night. This is a situation to keep an eye on. 

The Play: OVER 24.5 [half-unit]

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