Most Receiving Touchdowns in NFL 2019: Top-Dozen Odds and Predictions

Oddsmakers have determined who they think will be the 2019 touchdown reception champion during the 2019 NFL season, and the top place finishers from last season are not necessarily the most favored now.

It took 15 total touchdown receptions for Pittsburgh Steelers’ wide receiver Antonio Brown to win that title in 2018, but in 2019, Brown’s playing in a whole new ballpark (RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland) and catching passes from someone else (Derek Carr) so that title is now officially up for grabs.

There are quite a few legitimate contenders vying to be king of the touchdown reception this next season, and here we take a look at the top dozen candidates and analyze their odds and predictions for becoming the NFL touchdown receptions leader in 2019.

Here are the current top-dozen odds and predictions listed for which NFL athlete will have the Most Touchdown Receptions in 2019:

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Good luck!

12) Eric Ebron, Indianapolis Colts, tight end

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Age: 26                       Years in the NFL: 5

Height: 6-foot-4          Weight: 253-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 16

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 66 receptions for 750 yards and 13 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 60.0 while averaging 11.4 yards per reception.

Analysis

Last season, Indianapolis Colts tight end Eric Ebron was selected to the Pro Bowl for the first time in his career after tying for second-most touchdown receptions in the league with 13, which was more than any other tight end caught in the NFL.

The Colts signed Ebron to a two-year deal worth $13 million in March of 2018, and he repaid them by posting career highs in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns.

Having a soft-handed tight end on the roster last year helped the Colts see the postseason for the first time in four seasons, but Ebron, who is on the second and final year of his contract, will have to show that last year was no fluke and that he can continue to be quarterback Andrew Luck’s go-to man in Indianapolis.

11) Amari Cooper, Dallas Cowboys, wide receiver

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Age: 25                       Years in the NFL: 4

Height: 6-foot-1          Weight: 210-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 15

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 75 receptions for 1005 yards and 7 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 70.1 while averaging 13.4 yards per reception.

Analysis

Once the Dallas Cowboys traded for Amari Cooper during their Bye week last season, the team that started out 3-4 ended up on a 7-2 run, a sure sign that the speedy, sure-handed receiver made a huge difference.

Now that in addition to Cooper, the Cowboys also have wide receiver Randall Cobb on the roster after signing him in the offseason, the passing game in Dallas should improve after having been ranked 23^rd at the end of last season.

Cooper’s total of six touchdown receptions last season obviously didn’t come close to Antonio Brown’s winning total of 15, but oddsmakers predict Cooper’s 2019 TD receptions total should increase (and put him in the running) now that he’ll have an entire offseason to work with quarterback Dak Prescott and newly promoted offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.

10) Tyler Lockett, Seattle Seahawks, wide receiver

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Age: 26                       Years in the NFL: 4

Height: 5-foot-10        Weight: 182-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 16

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 57 receptions for 965 yards and 10 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 81.4 while averaging 16.9 yards per reception.

Analysis

After the best season of his career last year, when Tyler Lockett caught the most balls for the most yards and touchdowns of his NFL life, he became a top-ten candidate for posting the most touchdown receptions in 2019.

Overall, the Seattle Seahawks passing attack was abysmal last year, ranking 27^th in the league after averaging just 193.3 yards through the air each game, though they were tied for fifth most passing touchdowns in the NFL with 35.

In his rookie season in 2015, Lockett was selected for the Pro Bowl and as a First-Team All-Pro but has made neither one since (though in 2016 and 2017 he did make Second-team All-Pro), and if he can hook up with Super Bowl Champion quarterback Russell Wilson in 2019 like he did last year, there will be plenty more accolades in this young athlete’s future.

9) Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, wide receiver

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Age: 25                       Years in the NFL: 5

Height: 6-foot-5          Weight: 231-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 16

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 86 receptions for 1524 yards and 8 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 62.3 while averaging 17.7 yards per reception.

Analysis

Despite possessing the number one passing offense last season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers posted a 5-11 final record and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the eleventh season in a row.

That’s all expected to change under the new leadership of un-retired head coach Bruce Arians, who has brought in a new offensive coordinator, Byron Leftwich, plus add to that the fact that  there will be no more ongoing battle for the starting quarterback role like there was last season, so expect quarterback Jameis Winston to rediscover his own magic and hook up even more with receiver Mike Evans.

In the midst of that quarterbacking carousal, Evans caught for the most yards in his career last season and now with Arians game-planning, there is a good to great chance that the Bucs’ passing game will remain just as solid and Evans will have the opportunity to equal or better his career-high reception touchdown total of 12, which he’s done twice in his five year NFL career.  

8) Michael Thomas, New Orleans Saints, wide receiver

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Age: 26                       Years in the NFL: 3

Height: 6-foot-3          Weight: 212-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 16

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 125 receptions for 1,405 yards and 9 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 85.0 while averaging 11.2 yards per reception.

Analysis

Emerging as one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, Michael Thomas of the New Orleans Saints was incredible in 2018, becoming the league’s receptions leader with 125 catches, being named a First-team All-Pro for the first time ever and making the Pro Bowl for the second time in his three year professional football career.

Doesn’t hurt to have the 40-year-old future Hall-of-Famer Drew Brees throwing to you, and together last season he and Thomas set the Saints’ franchise record in receiving yards, bypassing Joe Horn’s record of 1,399 yards set in the 2004 season.

Thomas’ 9 touchdown receptions in 2018 tied for tenth best among receivers, but with Brees towards the end of his illustrious career and desperate for another Super Bowl ring, expect a big run for the Lombardi this season with Thomas being on the receiving end of as many touchdown passes as the aging Brees can muster.

7) Julio Jones, Atlanta Falcons, wide receiver

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Age: 30                       Years in the NFL: 8

Height: 6-foot-3          Weight: 220-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 16

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 113 receptions for 1,677 yards and 8 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 66.5 while averaging 14.8 yards per reception.

Analysis

The Atlanta Falcons are notoriously bad in the red zone (meaning they can’t seem to score from anywhere within the opponents’ twenty-yard line), last season ranked 23^rd in red-zone scoring percentage after only scoring a touchdown on just 49 percent of their red zone trips.

The big victim of that stat is Julio Jones, who in 2018 was targeted 17 times in the red zone and caught just 10 of those passes for 5 touchdowns, while inside the opponents’ ten-yard line Jones was targeted just 7 times and caught 3 of those for just 2 touchdowns.

This was one of the many reasons general manager Thomas Dimitroff brought recently fired Tampa Bay Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter back as the Falcons offensive coordinator (a job he already had from 2012-14), and now if head coach Dan Quinn, Koetter, and quarterback Marr Ryan can figure out how to utilize Jones more in the red zone, expect him to make a run for the receiving touchdown title in 2019.

6) Antonio Brown, Oakland Raiders, wide receiver

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Age: 30                       Years in the NFL: 9

Height: 5-foot-10        Weight: 181-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 15

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 104 receptions for 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 61.9 while averaging 12.5 yards per reception.

Analysis

The reigning receiving touchdowns champion, Antonio Brown, might have a difficult time following up his title now that he is on a team that doesn’t have the league’s leading passer under center.

To go from catching balls from potential Hall of Famer Ben Roethlisberger, who last season led the league with 5,129 passing yards, to Derek Carr, who threw for over a thousand yards less than Big Ben (4,049), might make a huge difference in Brown’s end of the season totals.

Another factor will be the totally revamped roster, with new faces at running back, the top four wide receiver spots and at tight end, so head coach Jon Gruden’s main job will be to organize all those new players while attempting to figure out how to take advantage of having one of the top receivers in the league as a weapon.

Who knows how moving from a perennial Super Bowl contender to a team that has only seen the postseason once since 2002 will affect Brown, but the man can definitely catch footballs, so if they are thrown anywhere near him, expect more big numbers from the 7x Pro Bowler and 4x First-team All-Pro receiver.

5) Odell Beckham Jr., Cleveland Browns, wide receiver

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Age: 26                       Years in the NFL: 5

Height: 5-foot-11        Weight: 198-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 12

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 77 receptions for 1,052 yards and 6 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 62.1 while averaging 13.7 yards per reception.

Analysis

Get ready to watch Odell Beckham Jr. explode now that he is finally on a team with a young, accurate and rocket-armed passer in second-year quarterback Baker Mayfield and now that he is on a team, the Cleveland Browns, that seems hell-bent on seeing the postseason again ASAP.

General manager John Dorsey has created a roster that includes enough talent to command the attention of the AFC and beyond, something that hasn’t happened in Cleveland since before they were basically shut down and re-created as an expansion team back in 1999.

If OBJ can stay healthy (and that’s not a given for the man who sat out the last four games of 2018 with a quadriceps injury and most of 2017 with a bad ankle), he can certainly re-establish himself as a top-notch receiver in the league and make a solid run for most NFL receiving touchdowns in 2019.

4) Juju Smith-Schuster, Pittsburgh Steelers, wide receiver

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Age: 22                       Years in the NFL: 2

Height: 6-foot-2          Weight: 220-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 16

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 111 receptions for 1,426 yards and 7 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 66.9 while averaging 12.8 yards per reception.

Analysis

Things are going to be a lot different for Juju Smith-Schuster in Pittsburgh now that the Steelers’ number one receiver, Antonio Brown, is playing in a different division.

Now Smith-Schuster will be the main man who receives all of the opponents’ attention and double-teams, so who knows how that will affect his end-of-the-season numbers.

Helping to take some of that particular pressure off will be newly signed receiver Donte Moncrief, but (hopefully) 2019 will be a season of the Juju man stepping up and proving to the football world (or at least the AFC North) that there is a new receiving sheriff at Three-Rivers, and he is just as effective as (or better than) the previous one.

3) Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs, tight end

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Age: 29                       Years in the NFL: 6

Height: 6-foot-5          Weight: 260-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 16

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 103 receptions for 1,336 yards and 10 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 68.7 while averaging 13.0 yards per reception.

Analysis

Arguably one of the top tight ends in the NFL right now (especially now that Gronk is retired), Travis Kelce is has been an offensive machine for the last five seasons of his career.

For three of those seasons, Kelce has posted 1000+ receiving yards and for the first time ever in 2018 he caught for double-digit touchdowns (10) and given who is tossing him the ball, that doesn’t look like it will slow down anytime soon.

Competing for third-year quarterback (and last season’s league leader in touchdown passes) Patrick Mahomes’ attention will be receivers Tyreek Hill (hopefully) and certainly Sammy Watkins, but there is plenty of offensive love to go around in Kansas City, so count on Kelce to play a major role in the Chiefs’ 2019 return to the postseason.  

2) DeAndre Hopkins, Houston Texans, wide receiver

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Age: 27                       Years in the NFL: 6

Height: 6-foot-1          Weight: 215-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 16

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 115 receptions for 1,572 yards and 11 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 70.6 while averaging 13.7 yards per reception.

Analysis

Last season, Houston Texans’ receiver DeAndre Hopkins’ 11 touchdowns put him in fifth place among his peers in that category, and chances are the First-team All-Pro will have another incredible season.

Posting 1000+ passing yards in a season is something Hopkins has done four times (with an almost-fifth time in 2016 when he missed the mark by just 46 yards) and he has caught for double-digit touchdown totals in half of his NFL seasons, so expect Hopkins to do the same in 2019.

Now that third-year quarterback Deshaun Watson seems to be fully healthy again, it will surprise nobody if he and Hopkins have a breakout year in 2019 and lead the Texans back to the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons.

1) Davante Adams, Green Bay Packers, wide receiver

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Age: 26                       Years in the NFL: 5

Height: 6-foot-1          Weight: 215-pounds

Number of games played in 2018: 15

2018 Receiving Stats Line: 111 receptions for 1,386 yards and 13 touchdowns with a catch percentage of 65.7 while averaging 12.5 yards per reception.

Analysis

It is incredibly shocking that the Green Bay Packers have been kept out of the NFL playoffs for the last two seasons, but injuries to the veteran quarterback and future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers played a big part in that.

Last season, Davante Adams’ 13 touchdowns put him tied for second place for most scoring receptions, and that was with a slightly hobbled Rodgers.

Adams has posted double-digit touchdown totals the last three seasons in a row (12, 10 & 13) so with a healthy Rodgers and an offensive-minded new head coach in Matt LaFleur, look for Davante to make a serious run for the 2019 touchdown reception title.

Read also: Most Rushing Touchdowns 2019 and Most NFL Passing Touchdowns.