Posted at 9:00 AM ET. Odds are subject to change

Baltimore -3 over Cincinnati

1:00 PM ET. The market is daring you to believe that Baltimore’s season is slipping away, and on the surface, the record backs that up. Two straight losses inside the division will do that. Dig a little deeper and the story isn’t nearly as bleak. The Ravens ran for 217 yards against Pittsburgh last week and still lost because of situational failures, not structural ones. That’s frustrating, but it’s also correctable. Baltimore still controls games at the line of scrimmage, still owns one of the most efficient rushing attacks in football, and still has Lamar Jackson creating matchup problems that Cincinnati simply hasn’t solved consistently. Urgency matters in December, and Baltimore has no margin left — which usually brings their cleanest, most focused football.

Cincinnati, meanwhile, is playing out the string whether they admit it or not. Tee Higgins is out, Trey Hendrickson is done for the year, and the defense is being held together with duct tape. Joe Burrow put up numbers in the first meeting, but that game turned on early variance and a Ravens team that never settled in. Asking the Bengals to replicate that effort while missing key pieces on both sides of the ball is a stretch. Baltimore doesn’t need to win pretty here — they just need to win. Laying a short number with the more desperate, more physical team in a must-have divisional spot is a wager we’re comfortable making.

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