The Cincinnati Bengals near the end of the season confronted by a visiting Arizona Cardinals club in Week 17.
Those Cardinals have lost seven in a row and sit on a 3-12 mark. Sounds simple enough, but we’d be remiss not to point out that the Bengals have a history of struggling against backup quarterbacks or passers making their first starts.
And Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett has shown up well against the Bengals in the past with different teams.
Brissett has appeared in 12 games this year, completing 65.2 percent of his passes with 19 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He needs just 89 yards to zip past the 3,000-mark.
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Something else the Bengals struggle mightily with? Tight ends have given the franchise fits since the early Marvin Lewis days, if not before that. Trey McBride is a Pro Bowler who leads the Cardinals in receiving with 1,098 yards and 10 scores on 109 catches.
Call it an interesting test for a developing Bengals defense with something to prove. Former first-rounder Myles Murphy continues to break out and first-rounder Shemar Stewart will be out there. So will a cobbled-together secondary now getting solid snaps from Dax Hill at boundary corner opposite DJ Turner.
There isn’t much that needs to be said about Joe Burrow’s offense. He’s back, just threw for 300-plus yards in a win over Miami and quietly has the best offensive line of his career in front of him.
Burrow and the Bengals want to win, of course. But fans might be keeping an eye on draft positioning, too. Right now, they’re hovering in the 10th overall range, which can’t get much worse, thanks to results around the NFL.
And that aside, this game is about developmental reps. Fans are more than right to wonder how the showings on Sunday will impact the organization’s decisions to change things up or keep things the same.
A complicated subject, no doubt. But the Bengals are the far better team on paper, especially at quarterback. There’s not even anything for the Cardinals to spoil on the road in the cold, either.
Prediction: Bengals 27, Cardinals 17
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This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Final score predictions for Cardinals vs. Bengals in Week 17
Reporting by Chris Roling, Bengals Wire / Bengals Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
