Bengals look to keep rolling against the Raiders
The Bengals are coming off one of the franchises biggest regular season wins in over a decade, maybe in its history. The team now has one game lead in the AFC North, a fast track to the NFL football odds post season and seems to be on top of the world. Perfect recipe for a let-down and a loss in the NFL odds. But not this week. Not against a rotten Oakland Raiders team.
True the Raiders have pulled off some very surprising wins this season including a thrashing of a talented Eagles team that also came to the Bay and was sent home with a loss after an impressive win over a division rival to take the lead in the NFC East.
Lightening isn’t likely to strike twice, but it’s not impossible. The Raiders finally benched QB JeMarcus Russell after the worst performance by a starting QB in perhaps the history of football odds. The offense will automatically be improved simply by this benching. So that’s a point in Oakland’s favor.
Another point for the Raiders is the injury to Cedric Benson. But as we saw last week against the Steelers the offense has plenty of other weapons and back RB Bernard Scott proved he move the ball on the ground.
The Raiders have some individual talent in the secondary and with 19 sacks on the year can get some pressure on opposing QBs. If the Raiders can somehow create turnovers and maybe even a defensive score there is a chance that they can pull off the upset, or at least cover the 9 ½ point spread. But in all likelihood the better team will win and that team is Cincy.
