Cat Scratch Reader
Welcome back to Thursday Night Football
The Cincinnati Bengals are taking on the Baltimore Ravens tonight on Thursday Night Football, setting up one another primetime AFC East clash. All Thursday night games kick off at 8:15 ET on Prime Video.
As always in our brave new world of expansive sports gambling, it is now easier to bet on games than to watch them. You can catch current odds on all NFL games for Week 8 here on FanDuel.
The 4-5 Bengals are a hard team to predict. They 0-3, have only beat the worst teams in the NFL (the Carolina Panthers, the New York Giants, the Cleveland Browns, and the Las Vegas Raiders), and have given up 24 or more points in five of their games—including two of their wins. This is not a team that strikes fear into the hearts of their opponents.
On the other hand, they have lost four games by a touchdown or less, including their first game against the Ravens which they lost 41-38 after entering the fourth quarter with a ten point lead.
The Ravens, meanwhile, have looked vulnerable to bad teams. Two of their three losses have come to the Raiders and the Browns. The Bengals aren’t a bad team, exactly, but they will probably keep this game close.
The injury report for this game gives few clues, either. The biggest losses are tight end Isaiah Likely for the Ravens and, potentially, Tee Higgins for the Bengals. That takes us back to the relative strengths of both teams. I have to give the edge to the Lamar Jackson/Derrick Henry combo that I would have killed to have on the Panthers for the past six years. That’s why I’m picking the Baltimore Ravens to win tonight. If Higgins is active, that pushes this game to a coin toss.
As always, use this space to talk about the action as it unfolds.
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