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Buffalo (-7.5) versus Cincinnati
The Bengals won for me last week in a solid effort in Cleveland, but they don’t match up as well with Buffalo this week. Cincinnati’s offensive line is having trouble opening holes for star running back Corey Dillon and the Bengals have managed just 3.0 ypr so far this season (against teams that allow an average of 4.4 ypr on defense). With the running game stalling, the Bengals have depended on the arm of Jon Kitna, who has averaged a solid 6.1 yards per pass play despite facing teams that combine to allow only 5.3 yppp on defense. With Cincy’s offense so dependent on the pass, they may have trouble scoring against a Bills’ stop unit that has yielded only 4.5 yppp this season (against teams that average 5.3 yppp on offense). Buffalo is in a similar match-up, as their pass-heavy offense (averaging 5.0 yards per play against teams that allow 4.9 yppl) takes on a Bengals’ defense that is soft against the run (4.4 ypr against teams that average 4.0 ypr on offense), but pretty good defending the pass (5.7 yppp allowed to teams that average a combined 5.9 yppp on offense). Overall, my mathematical analysis favors the Bills by 10 ½ points (do in part to a 3 point edge in special teams), but Cincinnati qualifies in a solid 102-55-3 ATS contrary indicator against teams that average less than 3.5 ypr on offense are traditionally poor bets as home favorite of more than 7 points (just 14-35-1 ATS from game 4 on). The situations favoring Cincinnati are worth 4 points, so I’ll call for a 7 point Bills’ victory and suggest staying away from this game.
The Bengals won for me last week in a solid effort in Cleveland, but they don’t match up as well with Buffalo this week. Cincinnati’s offensive line is having trouble opening holes for star running back Corey Dillon and the Bengals have managed just 3.0 ypr so far this season (against teams that allow an average of 4.4 ypr on defense). With the running game stalling, the Bengals have depended on the arm of Jon Kitna, who has averaged a solid 6.1 yards per pass play despite facing teams that combine to allow only 5.3 yppp on defense. With Cincy’s offense so dependent on the pass, they may have trouble scoring against a Bills’ stop unit that has yielded only 4.5 yppp this season (against teams that average 5.3 yppp on offense). Buffalo is in a similar match-up, as their pass-heavy offense (averaging 5.0 yards per play against teams that allow 4.9 yppl) takes on a Bengals’ defense that is soft against the run (4.4 ypr against teams that average 4.0 ypr on offense), but pretty good defending the pass (5.7 yppp allowed to teams that average a combined 5.9 yppp on offense). Overall, my mathematical analysis favors the Bills by 10 ½ points (do in part to a 3 point edge in special teams), but Cincinnati qualifies in a solid 102-55-3 ATS contrary indicator against teams that average less than 3.5 ypr on offense are traditionally poor bets as home favorite of more than 7 points (just 14-35-1 ATS from game 4 on). The situations favoring Cincinnati are worth 4 points, so I’ll call for a 7 point Bills’ victory and suggest staying away from this game.