Thursday night’s Week 10 encounter with the Baltimore Ravens isn’t just a chance to turn the season around for the Cincinnati Bengals.
It’s a chance to return to a nightmarish location and use it as a springboard.
Last November, the Bengals played a Thursday night game in Baltimore and Joe Burrow suffered his season-ending wrist injury in the loss.
One year later, the Bengals are 4-5 and winners in three of their last four after starting 1-4. Burrow is playing near MVP level with a 70.2 completion percentage and 20 touchdowns against four interceptions.
Yet, the rest of the organization hasn’t upheld its end of the bargain. Injuries, coaching gaffes, and roster construction issues have held back Burrow, and some of those factors won’t get much better on Thursday night. Tee Higgins won’t be able to play again, and potential rookie replacement Jermaine Burton missed a walkthrough last Saturday, which got him punished. Left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. is a question mark for the game, too. The team also opted to sit out of the trade deadline on the defensive side of the ball.
The hosting Ravens, meanwhile, are 6-3 and winners in six of their last seven and Lamar Jackson is also playing at an MVP level, completing 68.2 percent of his passes with 20 scores and two picks.
Even so, these teams met in Week 5 and the Bengals only came up just short in a 41-38 overtime loss as Burrow threw five scores. He’ll probably have to do that again Thursday night, as his running game probably isn’t going to make much headway against the league’s top run defense — but the unit does cough up an average of 24.3 points per game.
Given the defenses, this is probably going to be a shootout again. Given how well they know each either, it will stay close too.
It’s truly a coinflip matchup, with both teams on short rest and coming off blowouts of inferior teams last weekend. But elements like desperation and revenge shouldn’t go overlooked — and neither should Burrow’s underrated play right now.
Prediction: Bengals 27, Ravens 23
