All four Cincy wins have been against teams that are now 2-7. Four of their five losses were against likely playoff-bound teams. Their fifth loss was against the Patriots -- also currently 2-7.
So the Bengals are arguably a *soft* 4-5 squad, though they're playing a Ravens team they nearly beat a month ago. Although back then they still had a healthy Tee Higgins and Zack Moss. It'll probably be an uphill battle. I'm expecting Baltimore to take an early lead and never trail.
Cincinnati probably will want to lean on Chase Brown yet again. But there are four main reasons why it won't be as easy as it was on Sunday, when he had 157 total yards against the flailing Raiders. First, Baltimore's given up the league's fewest RB rushing scores (four). Second, a likely negative game script should put more pressure on Joe Burrow. Third, if the recently acquired Khalil Herbert is active, Brown almost certainly will cede touches to his new, capable teammate. And fourth, I don't think head coach Zac Taylor wants to overwork Brown after his 32-touch performance on Sunday.
But . . . Brown might be a bit of a unicorn. While this marks his first Sunday-Thursday combo, he sometimes handled huge workloads in college. In fact, two years ago as a senior at Illinois, he netted 35 touches on October 8th, then 44 on October 15th, followed by 35 after the team's bye on October 29th, and then 35 more on November 5th. That's 149 touches in four weeks, which in the NFL would have put him on pace for 633 touches. Insane.
My money's on Brown topping out at 18 touches -- still enough to start, though not enough to bust out, especially against the Ravens' stingy red-zone rushing D.
Through the air, as alluded to above, Burrow should throw plenty. Ja'Marr Chase is a no-brainer, and Mike Gesicki has been somewhere between good and outstanding whenever Higgins has been sidelined. He's a rare non-top-10 TE who's worth starting on a Thursday night.
For the Ravens, as of late Wednesday night, Keaton Mitchell (questionable) might see his first action of the year, while Diontae Johnson has a good shot at building off of his 13-snap Ravens debut this past weekend. Will Isaiah Likely's absence mean more looks for Johnson, Mark Andrews, or potential spoiler Charlie Kolar? The reality is that Johnson also might be a spoiler with Lamar Jackson averaging only 28.3 throws per game.
Zay Flowers seems like the only must-start receiver for all of the obvious reasons. Rashod Bateman has been too inconsistent, and that won't get better with Johnson on the field. And Andrews has hit double-digits only in games where he's found the end zone. For context, last season he had three 10+ point outings without scoring. He had two the year before that and six the year before that. He's getting squeezed by increased competition.
On the ground, Derrick Henry is coming off a 24-touch effort, which for him is like a jog in the park. Three times in his career he's had 20+ touches in the first leg of a Sunday-Thursday combo. In each case he's earned 20+ touches in the second leg -- while also racking up more fantasy points on each Thursday.
Final score prediction: Ravens win 34-13. Leave your prediction below.
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