The big story around Sunday’s AFC Championship matchup between Kansas City and Cincinnati is Patrick Mahomes’ injured ankle. Various news reports and constant speculation has caused the line in the game to move from Kansas City opening at –3 to Cincinnati being small favorites and now Kansas City laying a point and a half in most shops. One thing that is not in question is the health or talent of Mahomes’ counterpart, Joe Burrow. Burrow led the Bengals to what really was a dominating win in the snow at Buffalo in the Divisional Playoff round. The Bengals moved the ball easily on their way to 30 first downs and 412 yards of offensive production. Burrow is armed with arguably the best wide receiver corps in the NFL, led by Ja’Marr Chase. Burrow and company have played well against the Chiefs in the last couple of years, taking three games from the top seed in the AFC. In early December, Burrow threw for 279 yards as Cincy took down the Chiefs 27-24. We expect more of the same from an efficient Bengal offense. The concern going into last week’s game against Buffalo was injuries across the Bengal offensive line. That unit ended up playing above expectations and will need to do the same in the Championship game. If you’ve been following us this season, you know that we like to play team totals and we preach the importance of the very key number of 24. Oddsmakers currently have the Bengals team total under that key number at 23.5 – albeit juiced to –130 in most venues. We’ll play the over here and put our faith in the Cincinnati offense to reach this modest total. We don’t need to be on Mahomes watch for this one. We’ll play over 23.5 (-130) at BetOnline.
Prediction: Cincinnati Bengals team total OVER 23.5
