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Wanted to address this one real quickly: the fact that he’s unlikely to play due to a shoulder injury to his non-throwing arm seems very bad. I don’t have any insider info on this, but he really feels like it might be a good time to shut him down for the year if it’s that serious. They are missing multiple offensive linemen and wide receivers.

Minnesota has moved from -4.5 to -7, and the total has dropped from 45 to 44.

Market

Not a ton of movement on this side. Pretty much hovered around -6 for the entirety of the cycle, with some Bengals support almost pushing it down a bit but always with buy back to stay on six.

The total was a 49.5 on the lookahead and reopened at 51 after both teams had big offensive days last weekend. Nothing but over Monday until today. Hitting as high as 53.5 yesterday, it’s been bet down this morning a full point.

Injuries

WR Tee Higgins will almost certainly miss another game after injuring his leg in practice the other week. He and fellow WR Charlie Jones are both doubtful.

OT Orlando Brown Jr. (knee/fibula) is questionable. If Brown misses, Cody Ford would start at LT. DT B.J. Hill (rib) is also questionable. His absence would force some younger players to step into the rotation to try to stop Derrick Henry.

RB Chase Brown does not have an official designation after dealing with a rib injury. He’ll maintain his top role and likely be asked to do even more with RB Zack Moss out with a neck injury. The team did trade for another back, acquiring Khalil Herbert from Chicago. Burrow seemed confident that he’d be able to contribute, despite just getting to town.

For the Ravens, both DE Brent Urban (concussion) and TE Isaiah Likely (hamstring) have already been ruled out. CB Jalyn Armour-Davis (knee) is doubtful. RBs Rasheen Ali and Keaton Mitchell are questionable.

Newly signed CB Tre'Davious White is not expected to make his Ravens’ debut tonight vs. the Bengals.

Create your lineup, Win 3.3x

Matchup

In the first match-up between these two teams, the quarterbacks combined for almost 750 yards of passing, and the Ravens won in overtime despite fumbling the ball away on their first possession. If put in a similar position this week, I hope the Bengals don’t settle for the long field goal.

It’s a short week, but there are good coaches on both sides of the ball here, and I don’t think either team needs to get too far away from what has been working for them on offense. Maybe the game plan is a bit vanilla on Thursdays, but when your particular brand of vanilla involves Derrick Henry running through dudes’ faces and Lamar scrambling and beating you, maybe it’s not such a bad flavor. Sometimes familiarity can lead to some defenses that are able to slow each other down, but Sweet Lou and whoever is left in Baltimore did not seem to have the right defenses dialed up last time out.

If a fired up Burrow can build off last week, I think we see a pretty competitive game. No defense has given up more 20-plus yard plays than the Ravens, and even if Ja’Marr Chase is gathering extra defenders, this is still a matchup where people will be open. Gesicki, Iosivas, and maybe even dog-housed Jermaine Burton should be in line for big games.

The fly in the ointment for Cincy may be getting the ball back from the Ravens offense. Considering the state of the run defense and the possibility the Bengals will be down one more DT tonight, it could be a tall task. The Bengals are giving up over nine 1st downs per game on the ground and have a bottom-three success rate when the opposing offense runs the ball. I have them rated as my 25th-ranked defense.

Betting

I like the under slightly here, but I’ve learned my lesson against both of these teams. There are plenty of game states where this game ends in the 40s but, we saw this last time out get to 76 points in regulation. I also make this one a little more than -7 (see all my power ratings) and show some value on the Ravens but don’t love laying a big price in a divisional game like this.

I wanted to just leave this alone, but I still can’t get over how good Burrow looked last week and the fact that I have the Ravens’ pass defense rated 28th in my numbers. I crowd-sourced it this morning on Twitter and will just enjoy the game and have a couple of small bets on any time TDs for the Bengals.

Andrei Iosivas +295

Jermaine Burton +500

Drew Sample +700

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