Prop Points | July 31, 2026

**Brandon Kravitz** (0:18)
Welcome to Prop Points, your midday buffet of bets, analysis and insights.
I'm Brandon Kravitz alongside Erik Halterman as we fill the giant shoes left by Nick Whalen and Jeff Erickson on today's show. We've got news out of NFL training camp, some new signees in the league. Howard Bender from fantasy alarm joins us in segment two, former MLB GM, Steve Phillips at the bottom of the hour and it's dinger Friday. So we'll see what Erik has cooked up for all of his best bets in major league baseball. If you want to catch up on any of the topics discussed on today's show, make sure that you download the Prop Points podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever it is. You listen to your podcasts, Erik, very much looking forward to this one. Are you prepped and ready to hand out the home run props later in the show? A lot of pressure is on you.

**Erik Halterman** (1:12)
Yeah. Looking forward to it. I'm much like a lot of MLB teams around this time. We've traded away our top talent and whoever these guys are is coming up to fill in.
Are we going to be the exciting young prospects, Brandon? Are we going to be those veterans who you don't remember, except you look back 10 years from now and say, oh, remember when, when Brandon and Erik played for a couple of months at the end of the year, wasn't that weird? It'll be good to have those guys back soon, but looking forward to hosting with you today. We got a lot on our plate.

**Brandon Kravitz** (1:42)
I like the analogy. As long as we can not get our manager, Michael Cohen fired here, I think that we've done our part. Let's, let's start in the bayou with Chris Alave signing an extension with the New Orleans saints four years, $132 million, 90 of which is guaranteed always some sticker shock that comes with these numbers. But relatively speaking, this puts him in the territory of T Higgins, Terry McLaurin, just North of DJ Moore. And in that sense, I don't mind it. Eric, are you a Chris Alave guy?

**Erik Halterman** (2:17)
Yeah, it's a premium contract, but he's a premium player, right? All three years that Alave has played the full season, he's gone for over a thousand yards, just had a career high 1163 last year, career high nine touchdowns, career high 100 receptions. This is a guy who belongs right in this contract tier of receiver, I would say, and you're getting him right at the right time, age 26, for the prime of his career. It looks like a pretty fair deal to me. I see Olavi has been going about wide receiver 12 in the NFFC so far. Does that seem like a pretty fair part of the draft to you, Brandon?

**Brandon Kravitz** (2:56)
I'm a little...
I don't think I can get there receiver 12 I don't get sight, the Saints spent a top 10 pick on a wide receiver and Jordan Tyson. And some of Chris Olavi's numbers at the end of the season are a little inflated. Like I get that he won folks their fantasy titles cause he was elite. He was the elite of the elite, the last two games of the season. But the Saints were without DeVille, who they do give targets to. I know he's not as big a name as Chris Olavi, but Olavi was basically by himself in that passing offense, 18 targets in his final two games. And it was against the Titans and the Jets, who at that point were trying to lose football games. Prior to those two, he was putting up wide receiver two numbers. And if you look at his contract, like some of the names that we discussed, he got elite wide receiver two money, the Jalen Waddle or T Higgins numbers, wide receiver 12 in drafts right now, way too rich for my blood, Erik. You would have to nearly double that for me to draft him. I like the player. I hate the costs in terms of the Saints though, to spin this to a divisional bet, New Orleans might be the only team right now that is getting positive news in the NFC South Baker Mayfield feels disrespected. Vita via wants out the Falcons have Matt Ryan throwing passes at camp because their quarterbacks can't stay on the field. And the Panthers just lost one of their top off ball linebackers to an ACL injury and Nick Scorton. So if you told me today that you're betting the saints at plus two 65 to win the NFC South, I would not begrudge you on that. Now we saw this coming from miles away. We, we brought this up as a possibility on yesterday's show. Devo Samuel back in San Francisco, one year deal worth up to $7 million. This of course, coming in the wake of Ricky Pearsall's knee injury. And the expectation is that he's not going to be able to play this year. Eric, does this move the needle at all for you as it pertains to the San Francisco 49ers?