Cincinnati Bengals vs. Baltimore Ravens: 7 Crucial Stats and PFN’s Game Predictions

Regardless of what happens between 1 and 4 p.m. Sunday, the Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens will make NFL history.

Never before has a team played three consecutive home games against the same opponent. The Ravens visited Paycor Stadium in Week 18 last year, then again the following week for the Wild Card playoff game.

Sunday makes thrice.

“It’s a new level of familiarity, apparently,” Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said. “We’re excited for the opportunity in all seriousness. (We) can’t wait to go play the game. We respect the team, we respect the environment. We know we have our work cut out for us, but we also feel like we’re up for it, and we’re ready to go roll.”

🗣️ OXYGENNNN@Sam_Hubbard_ was mic'd up for his legendary 98-yard run.

Mic'd Up | Altafiber pic.twitter.com/frspXRCsid

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) January 19, 2023

Cincinnati Bengals vs. Baltimore Ravens Game Preview

This is going to be a Listerine game, with the Ravens, despite their season-opening win against the Houston Texans last week, looking to remove the bad taste from the “Hubbard-Yard Dash” and the 24-17 playoff loss, while the Bengals have more recent halitosis after their 24-3 stinker in Cleveland last week.

The Bengals started 0-2 overall and 0-2 in the division (0-3, actually) last year and rebounded to rip off 10 consecutive wins to reach a second consecutive AFC Championship Game.

That’s not a path they are interested in traveling again.

If the Bengals are not able to get the win Sunday, they will have to wait until Nov. 16 to get their first division victory. That will come in a Thursday night game at Baltimore.

Head coach Zac Taylor said the loss in Cleveland is firmly behind the team and that he saw everything he wanted to see from his players this week.

“I thought we had three good days of practice,” Taylor said. “I felt really good walking off the field (today). I thought we were really sharp (Thursday), which is our longer day.”

MORE: AFC North Odds Update

“That’s one thing about this team. I have not wondered (how they would respond),” Taylor added. “They’ve always responded the right way. You don’t take that for granted. You are ready for a week maybe where you’re not getting their best, but that’s the kind of leaders we have on this team. They don’t really allow for that.”

The Ravens will be without four starters as safety Marcus Williams, cornerback Marlon Humphrey, left tackle Ronnie Stanley, and center Tyler Linderbaum were ruled out Friday. A fifth starter, tight end Mark Andrews, is questionable.

Seven Bengals-Ravens Stats From Inside Edge

• Bengals wide receivers have averaged 189.2 receiving yards per game since the start of 2022 — tied for third best in the NFL.
• The Ravens have allowed 170.8 receiving yards per game to wide receivers in that time — fourth worst in the NFL.

Analysis: The average took a hit last week when Cincinnati receivers combined for just 49 of Joe Burrow’s 82 passing yards. Ja’Marr Chase said he knows a bounceback is coming this week, regardless of the fact the Ravens played the Bengals as tough as any team last year.

Cincinnati wide receivers had 115 yards in the first game (with a rare 33-yarder to Mike Thomas padding the number). The total was 156 in the regular-season finale and 147 in the Wild Card playoff game.

All three of those totals are below what the teams averaged against the rest of the league, and a big reason why is what the Ravens have done to eliminate Tee Higgins.

Outside of the Week 16 game in 2021, when nearly the entire Baltimore defense was out with injuries and Burrow set the franchise record with 525 passing yards, Higgins has 12 catches for 131 yards on 31 targets in his five other games against Baltimore.

• Bengals running backs have rushed for 10 or more yards on just 7.3% of their 328 carries since the start of 2022 — third worst in the NFL.
• The Ravens have allowed rushes of 10+ yards on just 7.9% of opponents’ 354 attempts — tied for fifth-best in the NFL.

Analysis: Joe Mixon had 16 rushes of 10+ yards last season, and three of them were against the Ravens. They went for 12, 10, and 10 yards, and all came in the Week 5 loss at Baltimore on Sunday Night Football.

Those three runs by Mixon brought the total of 10+ runs allowed by the Ravens to 13 through five games. They would allow only 15 more the rest of the season as they settled into first-year defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald’s new scheme.

• Ravens wide receivers have seven receiving touchdowns since the start of 2022 — third fewest in the NFL.
• The Bengals have allowed 18 receiving touchdowns since 2022 — fourth fewest in the NFL.

Analysis: The Baltimore offense has lacked big-play receivers for most of Lamar Jackson’s career, but the team took a step toward fixing that when it signed Odell Beckham Jr. in free agency and drafted Zay Flowers in the first round.

Flowers made an impressive debut last week against Houston, with nine catches on 10 targets for 78 yards. Beckham got off to a much slower start with two catches for 34 yards, but he is playing his first game since tearing his ACL in the Rams’ Super Bowl win against the Bengals. And the Ravens still have 2021 first-round pick Rashod Bateman.

The threat of the Baltimore run game, coupled with some new weapons for Jackson, will put some pressure on Bengals safeties Dax Hill and Nick Scott in just their second game as a starting tandem.

• The Bengals have covered four consecutive regular-season games against the Ravens and eight of the last 11.

Analysis: As positive as the trend sounds, here’s the counterpoint: The Bengals have never won five consecutive games against the spread against the Ravens.

Maybe the most surprising betting stat in the Cincinnati-Baltimore series, given that they are division rivals and the games have been spirited, is that of the last 10 games the teams have played, the closing point spread has been at least 6.5 in nine of them.

The outlier was last year’s Week 5 game at Baltimore when the Ravens were favored by 3.5. That’s the same number the Bengals are favored by Sunday.

This will be the 55th career meeting between the teams and just the eighth time the Bengals have been favored by 3.5 or more.

• The Bengals are 8-3 (.727 winning percentage) in games in which their defense does not force a turnover. That is by far the best winning percentage in the league, with no other team above .500.

Analysis: One of those wins came against the Ravens, a 41-17 triumph in Week 7, 2021.

The good news for the Bengals is they rarely have to win that way, even though they’ve proven capable of doing it. Lou Anarumo’s defense has forced at least one turnover in nine consecutive regular-season and postseason games dating back to the regular-season victory against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 13.

The nine-game streak is tied with the Chiefs and the Dallas Cowboys for the longest active one in the league. But the Bengals have a long way to go to match their franchise record of 28, set from 1974-76.

• The Ravens had a point differential of -42 in the fourth quarter of 2022 — fifth worst in the league.
• The Bengals had a fourth-quarter point differential of +33 — fifth best in the league.

Analysis: The Ravens are one of only two teams over the last five seasons to have a fourth-quarter point differential of -42 or worse and still make the playoffs. The other was the 2021 Raiders, who were at -76.

Ironically, the Bengals found themselves matched against both of those teams in their Wild Card playoff game that season.

The Bengals are at -11 this season after the Browns outscored them 11-0 last week. It was just the fourth time in the Joe Burrow era the Bengals have been outscored by 11 or more points in the final quarter, and they won two of the previous three (at New England and vs. Carolina last season).

• Only 9.6% of teams who have started 0-2 since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger have gone on to make the playoffs.

Analysis: That 9.6% equates to 39 out of 406 teams, with the 2022 Bengals being one of them. Again, it’s not a path they are looking to hoof.

MORE: Why the Cincinnati Bengals Cut OT La’el Collins

Only four of the 406 teams have gone on to make the Super Bowl. So for a team with Super Bowl aspirations, a Bengals loss Sunday might not be lethal, but it would be crippling.

Bengals vs. Ravens Predictions

• Adam Beasley: Bengals
• David Bearman: Bengals
• Dalton Miller: Bengals
• Jay Morrison: Bengals
• Dallas Robinson: Bengals

Here are all of PFN’s Week 2 NFL predictions.