Cincinnati Bengals at Buffalo Bills Pick

The Cincinnati Bengals (0-2) and Buffalo Bills (2-0) will square off at New Era Field in Buffalo, New York for an AFC conference clash on Sunday, September 22nd, 2019 at 1:00 PM ET. The game will be broadcasted for regional demographics on CBS. The Bengals own the most recent win this series as they hosted the Bills in October of 2017 and handed Buffalo a 20-16 loss to produce a narrow cover as a three-point favorite. The Bengals are 4-1 SU in their previous five meetings against Buffalo.

Cincinnati Bengals at Buffalo Bills Key Injury Concerns

It has been a well-documented injury but nonetheless an essential element to Cincinnati’s game that their star Wide Receiver AJ Green will be out until late September as he battles a torn ligament in his left ankle suffered in summer camp. The Bengals’ have plenty of firepower though he is absent, most notably Wide Receiver John Ross who already accrued three touchdowns this season for Cincy. As for the Bills, emerging talent Running Back Devin Singletary is listed as doubtful heading into this Sunday’s match with the Bengals. Singletary left Buffalo’s last game against the Giants with a hamstring injury. Veteran rusher Frank Gore will see an increase in carries in Singletary’s absence.

Cincinnati Bengals at Buffalo Bills Overview

Cincinnati Bengals

After falling by a point as a 9.5-point underdog in their season opener at the Seattle Seahawks, the Bengals looked uninspired in their follow-up last week against the visiting San Francisco 49ers. The Bengals were thumped at the hands of the Niners falling by a margin of 41-17 as a -1 point favorite on the point spread line. Cincinnati has now gone 2-8 SU in its previous ten pre-season/regular-season contests and gone just 1-3 ATS over this span.

Buffalo Bills

The Bills will play their first game at home this season after completing their two-game stint in New Jersey against divisional rival New York Jets and NFC East foe the New York Giants. Last week, it was all academic for the one-point favorite Buffalo Bills who cruised to a 28-14 win over Big Blue. The Giants have now gone 8-1 SU in their previous nine pre-season/regular-season matches and have covered in eight consecutive markets.

Reasons to Back Cincinnati

No one is going to want to back Cincinnati here given their recent portfolio of work, and as a result, you can expect the market to inflate the number next to the Bengals’ name to encourage action on Cincinnati. Contrarily, if anyone wants to see what a “zig-zag” looks like, what has transpired in the past couple weeks with this Buffalo team typifies that narrative. The Bills opened the season as a 2.5-point underdog on the road at the Jets and staged a 16-point comeback to win by a point. Buff City would follow this up with last week’s result against the G-Men. In both games, the public was leaning against the Bills and playing on both New York teams. This week the script has flipped as Buffalo seems to be a trendy consensus choice to win this game. As a result, the market has responded accordingly with Buffalo laying more points than it has in any of its previous eight outings where it covered. When you combine this with the fact that Cincinnati got its doors blown off last week after almost all thought that they would defeat San Francisco in its hosting tilt, and the stage is set for Buffalo to suffer a let-down at the hands of a Bengals team whose stock sits in the cellar.

Reasons to Avoid Buffalo

The market is still reluctant to give the Bengals more than a touchdown plus the point which indicates the upset potential in this game is significant. If all of the aforementioned angles do not dispel action from Buff City, the weather forecast is calling for a cold and rainy day which could regress the affair to a sloppy game. In such matches, laying a significant quantity of points is not a prudent move as a late field goal could easily be the deciding factor with respect to the conditions. Very simply, it is better to be taking back the points as opposed to laying them in such a scenario. However, when you consider the fact that Buffalo is prone to a market correction given how they have been a broken slot machine against the spread, I advise takers not to lay the Bills at an almost certain bad number which comes as a direct result of backing Buffalo at a premium given their overall spate of recent success and profitability.