STAR NFL PREVIEW Sun: Baltimore Ravens @ Cincinnati Bengals

As we reach Week 15 in the NFL season, there are some pivotal games on this Sunday’s slate and one of those is a divisional battle between two sides that can only be said to have underachieved this season, writes ANDY RICHMOND.

The Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals are both in a familiar position when the AFC North rivals face each other for the second time in 17 days on Sunday. The Ravens (6-7) are one game behind Pittsburgh in the division with four games to play, while the Bengals (4-9) have playoff hopes that are hanging by a thread. A win for the Ravens means that in all probability that they will still control their own destiny; anything less than a win for the Bengals and the post season will certainly be out of reach. After facing the Bengals, the Ravens have a tough stretch. They host New England and play at Green Bay before the finale at Pittsburgh. Cincinnati needs to win out and hope both Baltimore and Pittsburgh falter down the stretch.

The Ravens started the season 1-5, so they’ve had little margin for error most of this season. They revived their hopes with a five-game winning streak before dropping two in a row to the Bengals and Steelers. That Thanksgiving Day defeat for the Ravens was to put it mildly, a total mess, filled with error after error. In total they committed five turnovers, including four inside the 20s, either robbing themselves of easy points or gifting the Bengals a short field.

Both sides have had health issues with their quarterbacks this season, with Ravens QB Lamar Jackson missing sporadic practices and in games Jackson just hasn’t looked as dynamic as usual, certainly not as an elusive runner which was one of his X-Factors in the past. Jackson has had hamstring, knee, ankle and toe issues this season although he did look a little better last week despite losing to the Steelers. Bengals QB Joe Burrow has once again missed a large part of the season due to a turf toe injury and the game against the Ravens on Thanksgiving Night was his first game back after missing two months of the season. In that game, he passed for 261 yards and two touchdowns in a 32-14 win.

Whatever happens in this game, the safest bet will be on the weather being cold with temperatures expected to be around the -10C mark at kick off.

We expected a points-fest when these two last met and that didn’t quite happen but with the Bengals allowing a league-high 3.0 points per drive at home this season, the Ravens won’t ever have a better chance of putting points on the board. The Ravens average 6.3 yards per play on the road (2nd) compared to 5.1 yards per play at home (24th). In the Ravens-Bengals ten total meetings since 2021, the over is 8-2, going over the total by 7.7 PPG, but they went under in their last meeting on Thanksgiving.

It’s clear that to win this game, Lamar Jackson is going to have to play better than he has in the past two weeks when the Ravens have suffered defeats to the Bengals and Steelers. In that pair of games Jackson has completed just 36 of 67 passes, adding 73 combined yards and a score on the ground. It’s in the red zone that Jackson and the whole of the Ravens’ offence has struggled this season.

Jackson has completed a league-low 42.5% (17 of 40) of his passes in the red zone and he is 12 of 32 (37.5%) in that area since returning in Week 9. He has a 25% red zone touchdown rate (14th) after a league-high 50% rate a year ago, which we knew would regress. Baltimore have converted 44.9% (22 of 49) of their red zone trips into touchdowns, 30th in the league, with the offence as a whole having very much a run-first mentality that has persisted through numerous offensive coordinators under head coach John Harbaugh. Just 56.0% of Baltimore’s yardage has been gained via passing, 31st.

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One problem for the Ravens has been their starts to games. The Ravens have not started fast at all this season. In 12 total games, Baltimore are 1-12 to their 1st half team total over, the worst mark of any team in the NFL. Over the last two seasons, Ravens have started the year 5-8 1H ATS in both seasons, struggling to get out of the gate both years. Jackson is obviously part of that problem and he played poorly in this game two weeks ago although it’s important to remember that his matchup overall should be a good one for Jackson.

In that Thanksgiving game, Jackson completed 17 of 32 passes (53.1%) with an interception and 2 lost fumbles. Jackson was inaccurate, but there were a handful of 50-50 plays of which the Ravens ended up on the negative side. Despite all of this, Baltimore still has one of the highest team totals of the week, and the Cincinnati defence is still one that is porous to say the least.
If Jackson can improve his red zone productivity and avoid inviting pressure, then he should have a productive game here especially as he has the skill players around him to enable the Ravens to put points on the board.

One of the pivotal elements of the Ravens’ offence will be via RB Derrick Henry on the ground. Ravens HC John Harbaugh copped for plenty of flak for not giving Henry the ball far more in the first matchup between these two. He couldn’t be accused of that last Sunday when Henry has 26 touches for 102 yards. The one area where Henry and the ground game has struggled is on short yardage in the red zone. Inside the 10-yard line, Henry has a 36.7% success rate (33rd) and a first down or touchdown on 20% of his runs (33rd). In 2024, Henry led all running backs with a 70% success rate and a first down or touchdown on 53.3% of his runs inside the 10. The Bengals were respectable on Sunday against the Buffalo backfield but still allowed 150 total yards to James Cook and Ty Johnson on 24 touches, and they are still allowing a league-high 173.0 total yards per game to running backs with 17 touchdowns (29th).

The reliance and prevalence of the ground game within the Ravens’ offence has rather blunted their passing game and it was only last week that their WR1 Zay Flowers recorded his first 100 yard game since the first week of the season. Flowers should see a good deal of coverage from standout corner DJ Turner when the Bengals go to man, slightly denting his true ceiling in this spot. One area or position that has exploited the Cincinnati defence all this season is that of tight end and in Mark Andrews and Isiah Likely, the Ravens have two who could well make an impact.

Scorched by Hunter Henry (7/115/1), Baltimore’s TEs (9/142/0), and Buffalo TEs (10/134/1) over the last three weeks, it’s expected that both Andrews and Likely will be targeted again. When these teams played in Week 13, Andrews was on the field for 68.4% of the dropbacks, catching 4 of 6 targets for 47 yards. As for Likely, when these teams met two weeks ago, Likely caught 5 of 6 targets for a season-high 95 yards, which included a 43-yard catch and run where he lost the ball at the goal line through the end zone. Looking at the Bengals, when these two teams met just over two weeks ago QB Joe Burrow attempted 46 passes in a game where their defence came up with five takeaways. That meant they were able to run their most offensive plays in any game this season in that one (83), meaning they could find themselves with 15+ fewer offensive plays this time around. For all the Ravens are run heavy the Bengals are the opposite and for all the Ravens pass defence has got better in recent weeks, they did allow Aaron Rodgers to carve them apart last week for 8.4 yards per pass attempt and a 67.6% completion rate, the highest rates they have allowed in a game to a passer since Week 5.

Burrow is likely to be with one of his main wide receivers, though with Tee Higgins thought to be out with concussion symptoms and Burrow has been better and more efficient when Higgins is on the field. Should Higgins miss the game it would make the role of Burrow’s other wide receiver and an elite one at that In Ja’Marr Chase even more high profile. Chase, without Burrow on the field leads the team with a 35% target share. Chase was held in check on Sunday in Buffalo, pulling in 5 of 8 targets for 44 yards and rushing once for 8 yards. When these teams played in Week 13, Chase collected 7 of 14 targets for 110 yards and we could be seeing those sorts of numbers again with Higgins missing and the Bengals expected to have to play “loose” to keep up with the expected scoreboard pressure. Chase has reached 100 yards receiving in each of his past three games against the Ravens.

On the ground the Bengals’ backfield has evolved into something of a “timeshare” with the return of Samaje Perine who provides the change of pace, with Chase Brown being downgraded to “lead back” territory from a real workhorse role.

The fact that both teams are in “playoff mode” adds plenty of variables to the outcome of this game and the risks that both teams are willing to take in what is basically a must-win for both of them. The Ravens would rather win through control rather than going head-to-head with Burrow in a game that requires a scoring explosion and if the Bengals’ defence plays as badly as they have all season, they might not have to. It’s not hard to envision a game where both sides score 20 points and if the Ravens don’t commit the turnovers that they did last time, they could be the side that keeps their playoff hopes alive.

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