TNF Betting: Bengals vs Ravens

It is almost a shame that this one is on a Thursday night.

While selfishly I’m excited to have a better matchup than Bears-Panthers, it’d been cool to have a couple extra days for these two teams to get fully healthy. Hopefully, it won’t matter and we get the fireworks and big plays we expect from Joe, Chase, and Lamar.

Market

Both teams lost last weekend but I was still a little puzzled by the opener Sunday night. This had been Baltimore -3 in the lower-limit look-ahead markets the week before but opened to a -4. Bengals money has continued to push this down, but never enough to find a -3, seeing some back-and-forth two-way action on this side to settle in around -3.5.

Solid over money early in the week on the stone-cold opener of 44, seeing this up to 47 on Monday before some under money took it back down. A little bit of game day steam this morning pushing it back up to 46.5 at most shops.

Injuries

The Ravens will most likely be without their top CB Marlon Humprey and left tackle Ronnie Stanley. Devin Duvernay picking up an injury in practice is also a little bit of an issue for the Ravens since he returns kicks. If he misses, that responsibility will likely fall to one of the young running backs (Hill/Mitchell).

The Bengals will be without two of their top four WRs with Tee Higgins again missing the game due to his Hamstring and Andrei Iosivas out with a knee ailment. Defensively DE Sam Hubbard is out due to an ankle injury. He is currently 2nd on the team with 17 pressures

Matchup

This is an extremely tough one to sort out after watching these two teams play over the past few months.

A big part of what gave the Ravens issues last week was the Browns front winning the battle in the trenches and disrupting what Lamar was trying to do. Without their left tackle, it would seem like another week where that could be an issue, but with Sam Hubbard out and both Josh Tupou and Trey Hendrickson battling through injuries, maybe we see the Ravens’ offensive line hold up. They are getting Morgan Moses back at right tackle after missing time and Stanley’s fill-in, ` has played well when called upon.

I think the matchup I’ll be watching is the Ravens’ running game versus Big Lou’s defense. The Bengals are giving up over 130 yards per game on the ground (3rd worst in the league) and are 28th in the league in defensive EPA/Play against the run. The Ravens lead the league in rushing EPA/play and are third in success rate on running plays. They also lead the league in explosive (over 10 yards) runs and 1st downs gained on the ground.

I’m not sure who will be the most likely to benefit from the matchup. Gus is the lead back and Justice Hill has been nice when he’s stepped in, but we also saw Keaton Mitchell get 27 snaps between the last two weeks. On top of it, Lamar is on pace for over 150 carries, the most he’d have since 2020’s 1000-yard season. I don’t have a good enough grip on the splits they’ll see to get involved in the rushing props.

The Bengals’ offense should be fine without Higgins and Iosivas now that Chase isn’t going to draw a CB1 for big portions of the game, but the offensive line needs to hold up against a Ravens defense that now leads the league in sacks while blitzing at a very low rate.

Betting

Maybe I’m just in a spot where I don’t need another bet on a Ravens game in my life after last week’s debacle and the messiness with Arizona? That’s probably about right, plus I’m just still not exactly sure what’s causing this Baltimore team to act like they are late in games. It feels like it’s partially the play calling, but Lamar seems to find ways to keep the other team in it over these last few weeks.

I’ll just stick to my simpleton “overs only” props for some smaller stakes on games like this one.

Tyler Boyd saw 12 targets in Higgins’ absence last week. In a game where getting the ball out quickly will be the likely game plan, I think we see another heavy usage game for him. Going to play his catches and yards in this one.

Boyd over 4.5 receptions +110

Boyd over 43.5 yards -114

I’ll toss some darts on a game that I’ll finally be fully focused on. Edwards still gets plenty of looks in the red zone and the prices on the receivers that should see plenty of looks aren’t too bad (including MORE Boyd):

Edwards +650

Flowers +1400

Boyd +1600

Irwin +2500

Finally, I just got a press release email from the NFL this morning and wanted to keep you in the loop for all things NFL Thanksgiving: