Cincinnati Bengals at Cleveland Browns (-6): Total 43
Week 1 brought some underdog wins and some blowouts by the top teams. We start week 2 with a divisional matchup between the Bengals and Browns: a battle of first overall draft picks. Joe Burrow vs Baker Mayfield. With Joe Burrow coming off a solid performance in week one, and his counterpart Baker Mayfield under scrutiny from seemingly all angles, we have both an interesting divisional matchup, and a positional matchup that you should expect to see a ton of attention paid to over the course of the season.
The matchup
There are some very interesting takeaways for both of these teams from week 1 that we can apply to week 2.
Bengals offense vs Browns defense
Let’s start with the rookie’s side and the Joe Burrow-led Bengals offense. In week 1, Burrow put up a respectable stat line against a tough defense in the Los Angeles Chargers. He completed 64% of his passes for 193 yards, 0 TDs and 1 INT. Considering the defense he played in his first NFL start, it wasn’t all that bad. He even drove his team down the field late in the 4th quarter to tie the game, but the Bengals missed the field goal. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Burrow’s game is his ability to create plays with his legs. This was a staple of what made him extremely tough to defend in college as he can torch you through the air and on the ground. In week 1 he ran for 46 yards on 8 carries, including a 23-yard touchdown rush.
With Williams and Johnson out for Cleveland, they got absolutely obliterated through the air by Lamar Jackson. Jackson was able to complete 80% of his passes for 275 yards and 3 TDs. This stat line could have been much bigger too if the Browns had scored any points on their end.
The wide receivers and tight ends for the Bengals should be able to have free roam all night. Denzel Ward is the only semi-decent cornerback the Browns will be rolling out there on Thursday, but he doesn’t shadow and won’t go into the slot. This means that AJ Green who played 21 snaps at right wide receiver and 18 snaps at left wide receiver will move around the formation to avoid Ward. I expect Green to have a big game if he is constantly matched up with Terrance Mitchell who comes in at 5’11†compared to AJ Green’s 6’4â€. Mitchell had a coverage grade of 61 by PFF in 2019, which is around league average. Green led the team in week 1 with 9 targets and a juicy ADOT of 14.7. Burrow will continue to look downfield to green against the pass funnel of the Browns.
Perhaps the juiciest matchup for the Bengals pass catchers comes in the slot. Boyd runs his routes much closer to the line of scrimmage than Green does as evidenced by his ADOT of 7 in week 1, which makes for a good complement between the two. Boyd makes his money when he gets a high amount of targets, and that should happen on Thursday night when the Bengals look to pick on opposing slot cornerback Tavierre Thomas. Thomas has not played a significant role for the Browns in the three years he has been in the league and now he is their slot corner. In week 1 he allowed all 3 targets against him to be caught, going for 18.3 yards per reception, a TD and a perfect passer rating of 158.3. PFF graded him an abysmal 42 in coverage. Burrow to Boyd is something you will hear over and over again in this game. I will be betting the over on some Boyd props (more on that below).
Not only are the wide receivers in a good spot, but so is tight end CJ Uzomah. We saw Mark Andrews eviscerate this defense in week 1 to the tune of 5 catches for 58 yards and 2 scores, which again would have been even better if the game wasn’t a blowout. The Browns were known to give up production to the tight end position last year as well, especially in the TD department where they allowed the second most touchdowns to tight ends (10). Uzomah did see a red zone target in week 1, along with AJ Green and Giovani Bernard, so Burrow will look his way when they are in close.
On the surface, this looks like a good matchup for Joe Mixon on the ground based on last year’s numbers. However, after the week 1 run defense the Browns showed up against last year’s league-best rushing attack in the Baltimore Ravens I’m not so sure that is the case. After one week, Cleveland ranks 4th in adjusted line yards allowed, despite playing the extremely efficient rushing attack from the Ravens. Had they played mediocre competition I would be more likely to rely on last year’s numbers, but playing elite competition means it could be real. PFF agrees as they assigned the Browns a run defense grade of 80.2 which was best in the league. Again, I think this is the Joe Burrow coming out party in this game as you can definitely attack the Browns through the air, while it appears they may limit you on the ground.
Browns offense vs Bengals defense
I hope everyone is writing off Nick Chubb this week after Kareem Hunt had more rushing attempts than he did. However, I will not be. In fact, this is a great spot to go all in on anything related to Chubb. Here are the rushing attempts by quarter for Chubb and Hunt in the blowout loss to the Ravens:
Chubb: 4 1st quarter, 2 2nd quarter, 4 3rd quarter, 0 4th quarter = 10 total
Hunt: 2 1st quarter, 4 2nd quarter, 1 3rd quarter, 6 4th quarter = 13 total
As you can see, almost half of Hunt’s carries came in the 4th quarter when the score was 38-6. With Chubb not playing the fourth quarter in a blowout, this tells me he is their main guy in the ground attack. They saw no sense in running him out there down by 32 points and risking an injury in a blowout game the first week after a modified training camp. So how good is the matchup this week? Cincinnati ranks 17th in adjusted line yards after one week which is pretty much in line with their ranking last year of 24th. Austin Ekeler and Joshua Kelley had success on the ground in week one against this Bengals defense as they ran 31 times for 144 yards and a touchdown. On the flip side, despite getting blown out, the lone bright spot from the Browns offense in week 1 was the running game. The Browns rank 8th in adjusted line yards after their first game and should be able to control the trenches if their normal offensive linemen suit up as the Bengals are missing two regular defensive tackles.
With Jarvis Landry very questionable to play on Thursday, the good options that Mayfield has to throw to become even more limited. Luckily for the Browns though, the only decent corner the Bengals have on their roster is slot corner Mackenzie Alexander who played with the Minnesota Vikings the last two seasons. Even if Landry plays, I expect Alexander to be able to limit him as he won’t be fully healthy. This puts the focus on the outside receivers and the tight end position for the Browns to have success in the passing game.
Odell Beckham Jr led the Browns in targets week 1 with 10, but only caught 3 of them for 22 yards. Part of this was his matchup with the brutal Ravens secondary. The other aspect is Mayfield was inaccurate all afternoon long and was unable to connect with Beckham the times he did get open. Look for Mayfield to bounce back with a little more confidence against a weaker defense here. Beckham should be able to take advantage of any matchup he has on the outside as the Bengals are going to run out William Jackson and Darius Phillips. In 2019 Jackson allowed 14.1 yards per completion and a passer rating of 93. Meanwhile, Phillips has played very sparingly at cornerback in his young NFL career and is usually relegated to special teams. With Trae Waynes hurt though, the Bengals are forced to use depth at the position. In 16 targets last year Phillips allowed only 6 catches, however those catches were massive plays. He allowed a whopping 24 yards per completion and 2 TDs on 6 catches. That isn’t very good. It’s a small sample size, but a receiver talent like Beckham should be able to make big plays against this cornerback group.
I mentioned the tight end position being able to have success against the Bengals as well. In week 1 Hunter Henry was able to snag 5 of his 8 targets for 73 yards. The offseason free agent acquisition Austin Hooper should be focused on by Mayfield in this matchup. Despite the Bengals defense ranking 27th in targets allowed to tight ends in 2019, they gave up the 19th most receiving yards and 16th most TDs. A higher volume tight end, which we could see with Hooper here if Landry misses the game, will have a ton of success against this defense that has not been efficient at defending tight ends.
Injuries
Now that we are past week 1, injuries are going to be important to monitor. The notable players on the injury reports as of Wednesday afternoon are below.
Cincinnati Bengals
Geno Atkins (DT), Mike Daniels (DT) and Shawn Williams (S) all OUT – Each of these is a boost to the Browns offense as a whole. Atkins graded out above 70 in both run defense and pass rush in 2019. Both Daniels and Atkins missing leaves a gaping hole in the middle of the defensive line that the Browns can attack on the ground. Williams played over 1,000 snaps for the Bengals last year but has yet to see the field in 2020.
Cleveland Browns
Greedy Williams (CB), Kevin Johnson (CB) and Mack Wilson (LB) all OUT – Kevin Johnson was much better in coverage in 2019 than Greedy Williams. However, Williams is better than the alternative options despite not being very good in 2019, so what does that tell you about the backups? These guys out are a boost to the pass game for the Bengals.
Jarvis Landry (WR), Jedrick Wills (T) and Jack Conklin (T) all QUESTIONABLE – If any of these guys are ruled out, the efficiency of the offense will take a hit. Landry is one of Baker Mayfield’s favorite targets in the passing game, while Wills and Conklin do their best to protect Mayfield in the pocket. The Bengals don’t have a good defensive line and are without two of their starters, so this isn’t as big of a deal as if they were playing the Steelers. These are still important names to monitor, especially Landry.
Pace of play
In week 1, the Bengals ranked 11th in seconds per play and 17th in seconds per play in neutral game script per Football Outsiders. Meanwhile, the Browns ranked 17th in seconds per play and 8th in seconds per play in neutral game script. Neither of these teams will really try to slow the game to a snail’s pace, so this game should end up favoring the over more than the under in terms of pace.
Full game bets
I’m not sure why bookmakers are giving the Browns a 6 point advantage here. With the majority of stadiums around the league not having fans, home-field advantage essentially goes out the window. On a neutral field, these teams feel closer to equal than the 6 points bookmakers are giving you. I would side with Cinci +6 here as I think we get into a bit of a back and forth duel mainly due to the lack of defensive play.
Score prediction: Browns 24 Bengals 21. With this prediction, which is a total of 45 points, the lean on the game total is over 43 points.
Player prop betsÂ
As mentioned above, I like everything related to Chubb here.
Over 69.5 rushing yards as well as +260 to score 2 TDs.Â
In the passing game on the Browns side, look for Beckham to shine.
I think we get a vintage OBJ game here and he could smash his receiving yardage prop of 61.5.
On the other side of the game, Tyler Boyd is in the best matchup of the Bengals receivers.
I like his over 4.5 receptions as they should look his way often.
With the Browns giving up a bunch of TDs to the tight end position, look for CJ Uzomah to score a TD at +500.
