One of the biggest games on the NFL Week 8 betting slate is the high-profile matchup between the Eagles and the Bengals in Cincinnati.
Both teams have made the Super Bowl in the past three seasons (unfortunately, both were the runner-up), but have had their fair share of issues since.
The Eagles head into this game with a 4-2 record, but have looked unimpressive in doing so, while the Bengals sit at 3-4 but are two plays away from being 5-2.
As the home team, the Bengals are currently 2.5-point favorites, with kickoff set for 1 p.m. ET on CBS.
Here is how we are betting the Eagles vs. Bengals.
Bengals -2.5 (-115) FanDuelTo start things off, let’s take a play on the spread and back the Bengals to win this one by at least a field goal. Despite having the worse record, the Bengals have undoubtedly been the better team this season.
They lost to the Chiefs in Week 2 on a last-second field goal, and three weeks later, they lost a heartbreaker in overtime to the Ravens. In the loss to Baltimore, their kicker missed a field goal in OT that would have won them the game.
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Ironically, both of these teams have won two straight against the same opponents. The Bengals beat the Giants and Browns, respectively, in the last two weeks, while the Eagles knocked off the Browns two weeks ago and the Giants last Sunday.
Due to the poor offenses they faced the last two weeks, it is hard to trust whether the recent defensive success is real for Cincinnati and Philadelphia, so what this comes down to is having significantly more trust in the Bengals offense.
The Bengals have the sixth-best offense in the NFL, according to DVOA, and they have been lights-out since a poor Week 1 performance. Since Week 2, the Bengals have averaged 28 points per game.
The Eagles, meanwhile, have only scored more than 21 points twice this season. Burrow has played like an MVP candidate, while the Eagles offense has been mostly stuck in mud.
Even in a 28-point performance last week against the Giants, the Eagles went 1-for-13 on third down, and, even more concerning, Philadelphia is yet to score a single point in the first quarter this entire season.
The Bengals will get the job done at home.
Bengals -2.5 (-115): 1 Unit
DeVonta Smith o4.5 Receptions (-108) FanDuelAfter two quiet weeks in a row for Smith, now is the time to buy back in on his receptions prop. He had seven catches in each of his first three games of the season on eight, 10 and 10 targets, but he has been bottled up the past two weeks.
Two weeks ago he had three receptions on four targets against Cleveland, and last week he had one reception (for negative-two yards) on only two targets against New York.
Of course, the Eagles did not allow a single touchdown in either of the past two weeks, so they did not need to do much in the passing game. Hurts averaged 19.5 pass attempts the last two games after having at least 30 attempts in each of his first four games of the season.
In this matchup against the Bengals, the Eagles are going to need to keep up with an electric Bengals offense, which means Hurts will likely approach 30 pass attempts or more.
Nobody will make the argument that Smith is the No. 1 receiving option on this Eagles offense, as that title goes to A.J. Brown, but Smith is still an excellent receiver who has had plenty of production with Brown on the other side of the field.
In his last 30 games played with Brown, Smith has gotten to at least five receptions 19 times.
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni has publicly stated multiple times that he wants to make sure that both Brown and Smith are heavily involved, so whenever one of these two has a couple games lacking targets, he makes it a point to correct that.
This is evidenced by the fact that, in this 30-game sample size, Smith has never gone under 4.5 receptions in three straight games.
He has had brief quiet stretches before, but has always followed that up with being heavily involved, which is what we are expecting to happen on Sunday.
DeVonta Smith over 4.5 receptions (-108) FanDuel: 1 Unit
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Source : Newsweek