NFL Betting Picks: Kansas City vs. Cincinnati

Added on Dec 26, 2009 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

With Christmas and its slow sports schedule behind us we can return to full time sports betting action. As the NFL schedule winds down, we’re finding several good values on Sunday’s board based on which teams need to win to secure or improve their playoff seeding. Typically, linesmakers respond to the public’s knowledge that certain teams “need” to win and inflate prices on them accordingly. Such is the case in the Kansas City vs. Cincinnati game:

Kansas City Chiefs at Cincinnati Bengals
December 27th 10:00 AM Pacific

The Bengals lost a hard fought game at San Diego last weekend, though they did deliver a poinstpread victory for football betting enthusiasts. Now they’re in a situation where they need to win to clinch a playoff berth. Cincinnati hasn’t been to the playoffs since 2005, and they’ve now lost two straight games in situations where a win would punch their postseason ticket. They also have to be concerned about the Baltimore Ravens, who can also send Cincinnati to the playoffs by losing one of their remaining two games. The Ravens play a vulnerable Pittsburgh Steelers team on Sunday and an even weaker Oakland team in their final game, so they’re not in a position where they can count on a Baltimore loss.

Cincinnati has been a very erratic pointspread team this season that has shown a tendency to play ‘up’ to tough opposition and ‘down’ against teams they should beat. The Bengals have been a horrible favorite not only this year where they’re 0-6 ATS in that role but in recent years with a 5-14 ATS mark as a chalk in the past three seasons. The Bengals have been a favorite of more than a touchdown in three games this season and, obviously, didn’t cover in any including an outright loss to Oakland as a -9 choice. They now enter this game as a favorite of nearly two touchdowns without having demonstrated the pedigree this year to warrant that price. Adding to that concern has been Cincinnati’s diminished offensive productivity in the second half of the season, where they’ve become a running based team behind Cedric Benson and have failed to score more than 20 points in 5 of their last 7 games.

Adding to Cincinnati’s woes in this spot is the aftermath of Chris Henry’s tragic death. As we predicted last week, the Bengals came out with great intensity against San Diego to honor their fallen teammate and delivered the pointspread cover. This week is a different matter, and the Bengals could be much more emotionally drained after the Christmas holiday and Henry’s funeral. As we discussed last week, this is the second death in the organization that Cincinnati has dealt with this year. The week after defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer’s wife died, a fired up Bengals team upset the Baltimore Ravens in one of their best defensive efforts of the season. The following week, however, they lost outright to the Houston Texans as a -4 favorite.

The Chiefs are certainly not one of the NFL’s better teams, but they’ve shown much more life in the last month of the season covering three straight with two outright wins. They’ll enter this game loose and play without pressure. Cincinnati, meanwhile, not only has the pressure of securing a playoff berth as well as the emotional fallout from their second death close to the team this season. Plus they’re facing an inflated line due to their ‘must win’ status after being a horrible favorite all season long. They may not get the outright win, but we like the Chiefs to keep this one close.

Bet Kansas City +13′ over Cincinnati