In one of Sunday’s early afternoon games, the Cincinnati Bengals will visit the Cleveland Browns. These teams split their season series last year, and the Browns are looking to impress in their first full season with quarterback Deshaun Watson at the helm. Meanwhile, Joe Burrow just became the NFL’s highest-paid player, so he’ll have a chance to silence the home crowd and justify Cincinnati’s bank-breaking offer. Let’s dig into Sunday’s Bengals-Browns betting odds as we make our predictions and pick the best NFL Week 1 bet!
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Bengals-Browns Pick & Betting Prediction | NFL Week 1
Bengals-Browns Betting Odds
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
Bengals: -130 | Browns: +110
Bengals -1.5: -115 | Browns +1.5: -105
Over 47.5: -110 | Under 47.5: -110
Bengals-Browns Pick & Prediction
Can Deshaun Watson return to form? Will Joe Burrow be able to play at a high level in Week 1? Those are both reasonable questions, but I’m willing to bet the answer to both of them is yes. Watson struggled after returning from his suspension, but his disastrous performance was so far below his career average that some regression feels inevitable. Likewise, Burrow might be worse for wear on Sunday, but he has progressed steadily since his injury and is set to start. He practiced in full all week and did not receive an injury designation on Friday’s final report.
But even if both quarterbacks aren’t their old selves, they’ll have an easy job ahead of them in Week 1. The Bengals lost safety Jessie Bates III in the offseason, which will significantly hurt their secondary — Bates recorded a PFF grade of 76.8 last year, and the Bengals don’t have a good replacement — second-year safety Dax Hill scored a 58.1 last year, better than the 54.2 veteran safety Nick Scott recorded with the Rams. Bates’ contributions have been important for a Bengals team that lacks talent at boundary cornerback, so his absence could spell disaster.
The Browns had a notoriously bad secondary last year that gave up game-winning comeback drives to Joe Flacco and Marcus Mariota. Cleveland didn’t do enough to fix its secondary in the offseason. The Browns are betting on a bounce-back campaign from Denzel Ward, who was one of the worst cornerbacks in the NFL last year, per PFF. Safety Juan Thornhill comes over from Kansas City to join Grant Delpit, but I’m just not convinced that those two are good enough to compensate for poor play on the boundary, which is that much more significant because the Bengals boast both Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Further, Thornhill is questionable with a calf injurry and failed to practice on Thursday or Friday.
Cleveland and Cincinnati met twice last season, and those games are an interesting measuring stick for this one. In their first meeting, the Burrow-led Bengals put only 13 points on the board — all of which came in the fourth quarter — with Chase sidelined. Jacoby Brissett led the Browns to 32 points, good for a final total of 45. In their second meeting, Watson struggled and led the Browns to only 10 points, while Burrow and Chase helped the Bengals put up 23 without Higgins.
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With both Cincinnati receivers healthy, a likely better Watson under center and a worse Bengals secondary, give me the over at anything under 51 as one of our NFL Week 1 picks. The total hasn’t budged at all since I published the early week column, which means you can still buy the same wager I recommended then. Pregame doesn’t report encouraging betting splits for us — they have 91% of the cash coming in on the under on only 47% of the tickets — but some of that sharp action may have come in early and in anticipation of a limited Burrow suiting up. I still feel good about playing the over for this one.
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Bengals-Browns NFL Week 1 Pick: Over 47.5 -110 at FanDuel
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