Steelers vs Bengals Prediction: Browning to lead Bengals to big road win

The NFL schedule is all over the place this Christmas season and we have a Saturday night AFC North special as the Steelers host the Bengals.

@NFLGirlUK is here with her preview of the matchup and we've picked out a couple of odds-against bets for you to consider...

A huge division rivalry is about to take place between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. However, this is a matchup between two teams heading in completely different directions. Pittsburgh has lost consecutive games while the Bengals are going on a winning streak with their backup quarterback.

Starting with the Steelers in this preview, they have a ton to fix up. They lost three safeties in their loss to the Indianapolis Colts, two to injury and one more to an ejection.

The safety that was ejected has already been suspended for the remainder of the year, so they’ll already be limited. The other injury was to Minkah Fitzpatrick, somebody that this defense simply can’t afford to be without.

Although, the biggest problem is on the offensive end. They have already announced that Mason Rudolph will be the starter following yet another poor outing from Mitchell Trubisky.

Rudolph should be a better option under centre for Pittsburgh, but let’s be real, the problems on this offense go far deeper. And Rudolph isn’t that much bigger of an upgrade in comparison to Trubisky.

This group put up a ton of yardage against the Bengals a few weeks ago, yet they’ve been unable to put together a similar performance after that. If the offense can’t figure things out, this losing streak will continue, and the playoffs will be out of reach.

Flipping over to the Bengals now, there is a ton of upside. Cincinnati lost their first game after Joe Burrow went out with an injury, ironically, to the Steelers.

Jake Browning struggled to move the football very much, though he’s completely changed since then. Browning has helped lead this team to three straight wins over tough opponents in the Jacksonville Jaguars, Indianapolis Colts, and the Minnesota Vikings.

Most of you might have seen what Browning said to the cameras following the most recent comeback win against the Vikings, openly stating that he hopes the Vikings regret cutting him earlier in his career. There’s a type of swagger and moxie that’s following him and the Bengals right now.

It’d be foolish to believe that there’s not serious playoff aspirations even without Burrow, when many believed that the season was done for following their starters injury.

The main concern is in the wide receiver core, as superstar wideout Ja’Marr Chase is anticipated to miss this matchup. Now, he’s not ruled out with a shoulder injury just yet. The thing is that it’s a longshot that he can get back out there for this Pittsburgh matchup. There’s a big hole in the offense without him, and Tee Higgins will need to step up once more.

If I’m looking at this matchup overall, I like the Bengals to win this game. Pittsburgh has just been horribly underwhelming for multiple weeks in a row now. Their offense can’t get anything going, they might be missing two or three safeties, their run game got gashed last weekend, and the Bengals are really starting to get confident under Browning. It’s a tough divisional matchup, though I just can’t trust the Steelers offense anymore.

Match Odds:

Unsurprisingly for a divisional matchup, the traders have the line pretty close with the Bengals coming in as a 2.5pt favourite on the road. Both sides are looking at a very different plan at QB to how they drew it up at the start of the season but the performances of Jake Browning in recent weeks has seemingly been more impressive than whoever Pittsburgh have been throwing out there. You can back Cincinnati at 8/13 to win on the Money Line with Pittsburgh a 13/10 shot.

Not many points are expected as the Total Points line has been set at 38.5pts and we have a very rare occurance where not one player in Even-money or shorter to score a Touchdown anytime. Joe Mixon at 5/4 comes in at the top of that market.

Bet 1 - Cincinnati Bengals-4.5 on the Alternative Handicap Line 2 @ 7/5

We start our selections with pushing the line up a couple of points to take the Bengals at odds-against. Trust is key when betting games and what we've seen from Pittsburgh's offense recently has been pretty abject.

They were still very much in the playoff hunt back when the calendar turned to December but that hope is now very much on life-support. The Bengals have won three straight, I think they make it four and do so by the best part of a Touchdown.

Bet 2 - Tee Higgins to score anytime @ 7/4

Ja'Marr Chase is a Rolls-Royce of a player but Tee Higgins is not chopped liver. The fourth-year man out of Clemson is one of the most underappreciated number two receivers in the country and is the ideal man to step-up if the top-man is unavailable.

Jake Browning and Higgins connected twice for a score against Minnesota last week and I fully anticipate him being a significant part of the offense on Saturday. Getting 7/4 on him to score feels like a little bit of value in the market.

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