Ravens, Bengals, NFL discussed on Bet The Board
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
For every single bank roll out there. If you haven't already started with playing with FanDuel, what are you waiting for? Get into the game this weekend and pain. I think both you and I have very similar sentiments, so we're gonna have to fake a little bit of enthusiasm this week. Not the most attractive from a wagering perspective in the National Football League. No, not at all. We are going to have to treat this card like most women have treated us our entire lives. And we're going to have to navigate this board. We're going to have to fake it a little bit. It's just ugly. Yeah, I mean, there's and it's not overly shocking, right? A bunch of double digit games that are tough to navigate. Not the best matchups in general. I just, it's a weird board this week. And I think just talking to everyone that I have throughout the course of the week, that was kind of the same sentiment. It would be interesting to hear what John has when we bring him in to see what the early action looks like as my guess is the volume despite a massive weekend last week for the players is a little bit down right now. Oh, I'd have to imagine that's going to be the case like you said, John Sheeran will be with us later on in the show. He joins us every Thursday. And typically when you look at the NFL slate, a marquee matchup on Thursday night is what starts to draw people in. It kicks off a lot of those exotics. Clearly, Denver and Cleveland were not quite sure who's going to be out there. There's some talk that maybe the browns would start a cheerleader on their offensive line or integrate a beer vendor as a potential skill position player. Well, of course, get to that game as well with a unique breakdown there, but I can tell you you and I are both counting the days until next Thursday when we get the showdown between Green Bay and Arizona to start NFL week 8. But let's kick things off in the AFC north, where the surprising Cincinnati Bengals find themselves at four and two. They'll travel to Baltimore to take on the ravens, you're looking at this number, Baltimore, a 6 and a half point favorite fan to a sports book total in the game sits at 47. Last year, while it wasn't much of a rivalry whatsoever. The ravens outscored the Bengal 65 to 6 in the two meetings this season ago, Lamar has won the last three meetings against the Bengals by 35, 24 and 36 points last meeting between these teams as well, the ravens ran for 400 plus yards. This year appears to be a little bit different, though. The ravens offense, more balanced, they dynamic, passing attack that they can bring to the table, and suddenly the bangles have a defense after spending pain insider term of bazillion dollars to fortify their defensive line and address some of their concerns in the secondary checking in with a yards per play of 5.1. Second best in the league. Are you more excited to see Joe burrow against this Wink Martindale defense or Lamar Jackson match up against the resurgent Bengal stop unit? Let's go with ravens offense to start. And I think this is kind of the fun part of the matchup because you mentioned the ravens dominance. And that will be a good barometer for us to kind of figure out how far the Bengals defense is actually come. They're playing extremely confident right now. And the reason they went out and spent as you alluded to on DJ reader and Larry oak and Joby and Hendrix and re signed a very good run setting edge and Hubbard, was for this matchup twice a year. Readers one of the best run stuffing interior alignment, Hubbard, although a little down this year has been one of the best if not the best run setting edge. The Bengals through 6 weeks, top ten and run stop win rate, you look at the entire totality of the defense fourth in defense of Russia efficiency. So it appear on paper, the Bengals have some of the pedigree it takes to contain the ravens run game. You have two safeties and von bell and Jessie Bates that can crash down and are plus tacklers. A year ago, if you go back and actually focus on the game that mattered, it was week 5. A lesser version of the Bengals defense actually held the ravens to 20. Just a 40% success rate 5.4 yards a play overall. I think since he is better equipped to stop the run. But where it does get interesting is where you hint it at is through the air. Mark Andrews has been on fire. Hollywood Brown having his best season metrically Rashad Bateman returned last week four catches on 6 targets all four extended drives. The bangles are going to be tested through the air, and that is the interesting part of the defense and maybe it is overachieving a little bit, but Logan Wilson, the kid from Wyoming, he's going to be tasked with defending Mark Andrews. And through 6 weeks, 59 passer rating allowed on 26 targets. He's got four interceptions. So he's done a good job in coverage. Bengals are top 5 in defense of efficiency in regards to defending tight ends and running backs. It looks like a change of scenery for qdoba was done wonders. He's been one of the best cover corners in the league so far this year. The polarizing Eli Apple. I think that's probably the best word to use for him. He has played two of his better games over the last three weeks of his career. So those three are going to have to have big days to neutralize the ravens pass attack, but I do think you will see a Bengals defense that's a little bit better equipped to stop the ground game. And as I alluded to, even though you mentioned a bunch of numbers that would support the Bengals having difficult times stopping the run. And that has been the case over the years. If you focus on the data point last year that actually had a team focused on the ravens in week 5 and they didn't pack their bags for their vacation in the final week of the season in a season. That was lost. I think there's some signs here that the Bengals might be okay, at least stopping the ground portion of the Raven's offense. Yeah, and I think when you look at this ravens offense, clearly the running back trio or whatever the hell we want to call it what's going on there and John.