If you had the Cincinnati Bengals playing the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI, then kudos to you. Personally, I thought we would be watching the Buffalo Bills and the Green Bay Packers, but neither of those teams even made it to the conference championship round, let alone the Super Bowl. These two four-seeds have shown a lot of grit, and if you look at the sports betting odds for each team to make it this far back in Week 1 of the regular season, you could be sitting on some big money now. The Rams had +1500 odds to win the Super Bowl – and the Bengals’ moneyline was +12000. Now, though, the Bengals are just underdogs of 3 ½ to 4 ½ points, depending on the book you choose.
Let’s take a closer look at your best NFL pick against the spread.
NFL News: Super Bowl ATS Pick
Why should you pick the Bengals?
The Bengals have a pair of second-year offensive phenoms in Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. Don’t overlook the role that Tee Higgins plays in the offense; against Kansas City in the AFC Championship, when the Chiefs decided to focus on Chase, Higgins just kept making catch after big catch. Joe Mixon and Samaji Perine make a terrific duo in the backfield as well. This is an offense that is younger than the Rams’, but the ceiling might just be higher.
Joe Burrow just keeps finding ways to win. Against Tennessee in the divisional round, he got sacked nine times – and still led his team to win. No other NFL quarterback had ever taken at least eight sacks in a playoff game and still led his team to victory. Against the Chiefs, he kept breaking tackles whether under pressure or scrambling, and his five carries for 25 yards moved the chains on multiple occasions. Burrow is emerging as a player with the “it” factor, that same sort of intangible that Tom Brady carried with him.
Don’t overlook the Cincinnati defense. We heard a lot about how physical the Tennessee defense was (and it is), but it was the Bengals who did not let the return of Derrick Henry stall their playoff chances. Against the Chiefs, the Cincinnati defense looked like Swiss cheese in the first half, giving up three touchdowns on three drives, but then a key tackle by Eli Apple in the waning seconds of the first half kept the Chiefs from going up 28-10, and after the intermission, the Bengals sacked Patrick Mahomes four times and picked him off twice, including once in overtime (just in case the Bills weren’t watching, it is possible to get a defensive stop against Kansas City in the fourth quarter and in overtime).
Why should you pick the Rams?
We keep hearing about how great Matthew Stafford is, and for years he carried the banner for the best quarterback playing on the worst team, mired in Detroit with a Lions team that could not find both a quality coach and a talented roster at the same time. Stafford and Cooper Kupp appear to have a chemistry that rivals that of Burrow and Chase, as they kept hooking up time and time again. It helped that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, after coming back from a 24-point deficit in the third quarter to tie the game, dialed up a cover zero slot blitz that left Kupp uncovered for a late bomb in the divisional round, and it also helped that the 49ers went into an offensive shell in the fourth quarter, but Stafford produced, just like Burrow has.
The Rams’ defense has stellar names as well. Jalen Ramsey. Von Miller. Aaron Donald. All of these are game-changing players, and they are all on the same defensive unit. There are times when they shut down opponents, as we saw in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship. There are also times when they lose focus, but they have made it into the Super Bowl.
As far as my pick goes, we see that Stafford has gotten lucky on multiple occasions in the postseason, and luck eventually runs out. That duck he threw in the fourth quarter that Jaquiski Tartt dropped? We wouldn’t be reading about how great Stafford is, and how Jimmy G is on the way out in San Francisco, if Tartt had caught that pass and the 49ers had held their lead. I’m liking Cincinnati to cover, and it would not surprise me at all for them to win straight up.
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