Monday Night Lock: Week 8
Bengals (-3) @ Browns, O/U 45
AFC North showdown on Monday Night between the 4–3 Bengals, looking to stay attached to the Ravens atop the division, and the 2–5 Browns, looking to keep their season alive.
The Bengals are a pretty hot football team right now. They’ve won 4 of their last 5. They’re putting up points consistently. But they will be without Ja’Marr Chase for a while. Fortunately for them, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd are more than capable of stepping up and filling that gap. Still, I expect a little more of Joe Mixon for the next few weeks. Either way, I don’t expect this offense to suffer much.
On the other hand, the Browns are in a freefall. They’ve lost 4 straight. The relevancy of their season hangs in the balance with this game at home in primetime against their division rival. They’ll rely on a heavy dose of Nick Chubb, but that kind of one-dimensional attack typically doesn’t fare well against quality teams.
I’ll lay the points with the reigning AFC champs here. Even without Chase, I just expect their offense to be far too explosive and dynamic for the grind it out style of the Browns to keep up. I’ll take the under as well.
