Bengals at Raiders Line

Written by Kyle Hunter

On a normal year of late one would expect this to be a match up between two teams with terrible records and little to play for. The Raiders are just 2-7 and have had a tough season, but the Cincinnati Bengals have been the biggest surprise in the NFL so far this season. The Bengals have swept the Steelers and the Ravens already this year and sit atop the very strong AFC North at 7 wins and 2 losses. They head to the west coast to try to move to 8-2 this weekend.

The Bengals have done it with improvement all around this season. The defense is the best and toughest it has been in years and the offense is much improved thanks to a great running game and a healthy Carson Palmer. Palmer, the former Heisman trophy winner, has really stepped up as a leader this year and has led the team on game winning drives in the last couple minutes several times this season. Palmer is completing 61% of his passes and has over 2,000 yards and 14 touchdowns in 9 games thus far this season. Cedric Benson, the Bengals main running option is listed as doubtful for this game so they will definitely miss him. The offensive line has done a great job run blocking this year, and Bernard Scott is a pretty good backup, so the Bengals may well still be able to run the ball. The Bengals defense has improved in a huge way in the last couple of years. The Bengals have the second best run defense in the NFL and are only allowing 16 points per game.

The Oakland Raiders have had a very long season already, thanks mainly to a terrible offense. This weekend JaMarcus Russell has been benched and Bruce Gradkowksi will be given the chance to start. The Raiders offense has been the definition of inept so far this season, scoring just 9.8 points per game and gaining only 222 yards per game. The Raiders have made it easy on those making football predictions of late, just take the other team against the spread and cash in the large majority of the time. The Raiders have three talented running backs in Bush, McFadden, and Fargas, but they have yet to get going in a big way. The Raiders really need some kind of passing game to keep the defenses from loading up the box to stop the run. The defense of the Raiders isn’t great, but they haven’t been terrible either. The Raiders weakness on defense so far this year has been against the run, where they are giving up 156 yards per game.

The NFL odds for this weekend show the Bengals as 9.5 point favorites in this game. The posted total is set at 36 points. When making your NFL picks for this game consider the fact that the Bengals are just 1-6 against the spread in their last 7 games where they were favored. The under is 4-0 in the last 4 meetings between these two teams.

The Bengals definitely have looked the better team, but they can’t overlook the Raiders in this game. The Bengals come in slightly wounded with injury difficulties so this might be a little closer than you would think, but the Bengals should get the job done in the end.

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