Four Downs: Thursday Slop-Fest or Another Barnburner?

The Baltimore Ravens’ battle with the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday Night Football is one of the most important games of the season. When you look at the AFC North, you see the Pittsburgh Steelers cruising along with a 6-2 record. The Ravens are 6-3 with a showdown with the Steelers looming next. The Bengals aren’t out of this divisional contest with a record of 4-5. If the Bengals can start dragging their AFC North counterparts into the mud, starting with the Ravens on a national stage, they can leap right back into the conversation.

The NFL is sneaking one of its marquee matchups on a Thursday evening in what we’ll call an eventful week. If this game snuck up on you, I got you. Here are the four things to think about for this game.

First Down: Bet the Over, But Don’t Get Crazy

About a month ago we saw the Ravens topple the Bengals in Cincinnati in a 41-38 game that included a bit of luck and induced every emotion known to man. Some of the Flock would still be on the cloud nine from this game if it weren’t for the depressing dropped game in Cleveland. In that 41-38 instant classic, Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson combined for nine touchdowns and each offense put on a clinic in efficiency. If you’re a betting man, betting the over is a good idea.

The Ravens just steamrolled the Denver Broncos, putting up another 41 point performance against a top five defense in the NFL. Partly due to injuries, the Bengals defense ranks near the back half of the league as they give up 342.9 yards per game. The Ravens defense has climbed up a bit from their sorrowful defensive rankings but still allow 356.6 yards per game. The Bengals give up 25.2 points per game, while the Ravens average 24.3 in this category. Burrow is coming off another five-touchdown game against the Las Vegas Raiders, while there was a Jackson five just two weeks ago on Monday Night Football. This feels a bit like a classic Big 12 game in the college ranks: defense may not be included. The selling point for this game is that it’s a Fantasy Football show-off event with stars who can rack up the points.

Bet the over, but don’t get carried away. This is a divisional game on a short week for both teams. Thursday games have a reputation for being a bit sloppier and divisional games are always a bit tougher because they mean more to the season’s outcome and there aren’t a lot of things the two teams can surprise each other with. The Ravens are coming off a second half shutout against the Broncos. The Bengals have held three of their recent opponents to 24 points or less. While neither defense has a ton of confidence, it isn’t selling matches in hell to suggest both units are walking towards a more positive trajectory. This game has two elite quarterbacks and plenty of firepower but the matchup should be less explosive than their insane game in October.

Second Down: Who Will be the Defensive Hero?

In that barnburner of a game in October, Marlon Humphrey’s interception opened the door for a Ravens win. That interception was like a block that slowed down the cogs of the Bengals’ offense just enough for the Ravens to pull away with the game. We’re not expecting a defensive stalemate, but we should expect there to be a defensive hero in the contest. This is the kind of game where it’s either going to come down to who has the ball last or who gets that one big turnover that shifts the outcome to their side.

Remember the 36-35 victory the Ravens had over the Kansas City Chiefs in 2021? Odafe Oweh was the hero of that game because he stripped the ball from Clyde Edwards-Helaire, preventing the Chiefs go-ahead field goal. Remember Ed Reed’s 106-yard interception return against the Browns in 2004? That stopped a potential overtime-forcing touchdown drive in the red zone and gave Baltimore an incredible moment. This game against the Bengals could very well be that kind of game, the kind of game where one play, from one defensive hero, is the whole dang thing. The Ravens could find themselves in need of another play like Humphrey’s timely pick of Burrow from Week 5 of this season.

Winning the turnover battle is always key, and talking about turnovers makes me sound like a broken record. That one interception from Week 5 was the only reason the Ravens could come back and force overtime. The game-changing play, usually in the form of a turnover, is what usually defines games like this.

Third Down: Flowers for a Rival

Zay Flowers is having an incredible season. He’s notched 46 receptions for 654 yards and three touchdowns this year, ranking fifth in the NFL in receiving yards with fewer receptions than every receiver above him in this category. In four of the last five games, Flowers has had five or more receptions and over 100 yards. The Bengals know this all too well, as they saw Flowers put up 111 yards on seven catches.

Flowers kept the Cincinnati defense busy and occupied, which allowed three other Ravens receivers to have three catches or more along with 50+ yards. Look for the Ravens’ strategy to be similar in this game. It’s a chain reaction: the Bengals can’t stop Flowers –> the Ravens hit other targets as they try to figure it out.

Flowers is a matchup problem for the Bengals. They have trouble slowing him down and he finds windows in their coverage and exhausts them while they chases him. That seems to be a problem for the Bengals in general against Baltimore, because they haven’t had an effective answer for Lamar Jackson. In Jackson’s last three games against the Bengals he’s had no lower than 112.8 as a passer rating, while racking up eight touchdowns and 849 yards. That’s just what he did as a passer; when you add on the 50 or so rushing yards for those three games it highlights how lost Cincinnati is at least defensively against the Ravens. If Flowers has his fifth game of the season with five or more receptions and 100+ yards, the numbers will keep looking worse for the Cincinnati enthusiasts of the world.

Fourth Down: Keaton Mitchell Time? Diontae Johnson Gets Going?

Reports indicate that Keaton Mitchell could potentially get back to the action against the Bengals. On one hand, the Ravens’ incredible backfield gets another boost if this is true. On the other hand, the Ravens have to add Mitchell into the game without disrupting the good things they have going at the running back position. Mitchell is the perfect change of pace back to Derrick Henry. If Henry is a tank rumbling down the field, Mitchell is a missile that bursts with straight line speed through the defense. The Ravens should ease Mitchell back into the action and for the most part keep Justice Hill’s role as unchanged as possible for now. The Ravens can use Mitchell the way some of the more dynamic weapons at the position like Christian McCaffery are used. They can line him up in the slot and have Derrick Henry or Hill in the backfield. This would be an effective way of getting him in there, giving him a light workload to start while giving the defense a whole new thing to worry about.

Mitchell is a jolt of energy. He averaged 8.4 yards per carry before getting hurt last season. The Ravens see him as a big play waiting to happen. If he comes back and is feeling right, the Ravens got another weapon at running back, a spoil of riches for the best running team in the NFL.

How about Diontae Johnson? The Ravens traded for him shortly before their brawl with the Denver Broncos. Johnson was active for the game and played some snaps on offense, but wasn’t targeted. Look for Todd Monken to try to get a test drive out of Johnson in this game. The veteran receiver, who put up 30 receptions on a bad Panthers team, could get going for the Ravens. The Bengals potentially have two more players to prepare for than they did last month.

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2024/11/05/four-downs/four-downs-thursday-slop-fest-or-another-barnburner/