Browns @ Bengals Week 14 Game Preview
Look for the Burrow-led Bengals to break their losing streak against the Browns and hand Watson a potentially decisive first loss with his new team.
Browns at Bengals (-6.0) – 47.0 total
This will be the second meeting of the year between the Browns and the Bengals. The Browns won the first game handily, sacking Joe Burrow five times (and hitting him another seven) and dropped the third-year quarterback’s career record to 0-4 against Cleveland. Despite the dominant performance by the Browns, the paths of these two teams have changed dramatically since that game. Cincinnati is 4-0 straight up over their last four starts and have allowed an average of just 1.3 sacks over the last three games. Cleveland is 2-2 since that win, but needed a dominant defensive performance last week just to sneak past Houston.
The Bengals are 8-4 and they’ve also been one of the best teams against the spread in the league this year, with a perfect 4-0 ATS in their last four home games. We can point to numerous factors for the Bengals’ surge (coaching, discipline on defense, a solid depth chart at RB and WR) but the truth is they are riding a major heater by Joe Burrow. Burrow was masterful last week again against Kansas City, completing 80% of his passes for 286 yards (and 9.22 yards per attempt). He’s now thrown 23 TDs and just four INTs since Week 2 and will certainly have plenty of motivation this week after getting embarrassed in his last start against the Browns.
Cleveland won’t just be facing off against an improved O-Line and a red-hot Burrow either. Ja’Marr Chase missed the first game between these two teams and he will create more mis-matches in the secondary for the Bengals to take advantage of. Chase was held to less than 50-yards in two games against Cleveland last year but his presence allowed Tee Higgins to go for 6-78 against them last year in Week 9. Chase led the team with eight targets last week but with Denzel Ward potentially putting shadow coverage on Chase, don’t be shocked if Burrow decides to pick apart Cleveland with downfield passes to Higgins, who caught a TD against Cleveland in Week 8, and is one of the league's best at converting catches in tight coverage.
As for Cleveland’s signal-caller Deshaun Watson, his first game as a Brown produced a win, but was less than memorable from a stat standpoint. Watson completed just 12 passes on 23 attempts, for only 5.95 yards per attempt against the Texans, and will need to be miles better in all likelihood to remain undefeated with his new team. In Watson’s first game back, the target count for the Browns receivers was as follows: Amari Cooper - 9, Donovan Peoples-Jones - 3, Kareem Hunt - 3, and six players with one target each.
The Browns only threw the ball 22-times in Watson’s return game, but it’s clear from the usage that we may see a little shift in targeting going forward. Watson is an aggressive out-of-the-pocket passer and favored the downfield ball when in Houston, producing numerous big years with Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins. It certainly bodes well for Cooper going forward, who was clearly Watson’s favorite target in this game, and less well for the usage of RBs Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt in the passing game.
With the Bengals still thin at CB due to the injury to Chidobe Awuzie, also look for a potential deep connection or two to Peoples-Jones. Last week we saw Marquez Valdes-Scantling get behind this secondary for multiple catches of 20+ yards. Peoples-Jones caught all three of his passes from Watson last week (14.7 yards per catch) and could be somewhat of an X-Factor for Cleveland as they try to cash in on their new quarterback’s ability to stretch the field.
Chubb went for 23-101-2 in the first game against Cincinnati, although a lot of his usage was gameflow-induced. Expect the Bengals offense to force the Browns into more passing situations in the rematch. How much improvement Watson shows in his second game back will be a major factor in how this game plays out. If he plays anything similar to how he did versus the Texans, then this game could be a laugher. Even if he shows improvement, the Bengals are operating at a high enough level that a cover shouldn’t be unexpected. Look for Burrow to break his losing streak against Cleveland and hand Watson a potentially decisive first loss as a Brown.