For the Week 8 edition of Monday Night Football, we’ve got an old school AFC North rivalry as the Cleveland Browns host the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Browns have lost four consecutive games after beginning the season 2-1, and are seemingly in danger of falling too far out of the playoff picture for them to be a factor over the second half of the season. The Bengals have won four of their last five after starting out 0-2 and looked like they were about to go on a run… but they lost Ja’Marr Chase to a hip injury and will now have to re-adjust to life without their star wideout for at least the next few weeks.
Will the Browns get back on track, or will the Bengals keep rolling despite injury issues? We’ll find out soon enough. Before we break down the matchup, here’s how you can watch the game.
How to watch
Date: Monday, Oct. 31 | Time: 8:15 p.m. ET
Location: FirstEnergy Stadium (Cleveland, Ohio)
TV: ESPN | Stream: fuboTV (try for free)
Follow: CBS Sports App
Odds: Bengals -3, O/U 45 (courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook)
When the Bengals have the ball
We went deep on the early-season struggles of the Bengals’ offense a few weeks ago, prior to their Sunday Night Football matchup against the Ravens. (Yes, Bengals fans, we know they have since gotten better. There’s a reason we’re mentioning the struggles. Just hang in there.) Here’s an excerpt:
Much of this backslide seems to stem from the maddening predictability of their offense. Cincinnati has some of the most extreme run-pass splits when it comes to their quarterback’s alignment that I can ever remember. This season, on plays where Burrow has aligned in shotgun, the Bengals have called a pass play 78% of the time. When he’s been under center, they’ve called a run pay 75% of the time. Such extreme divergence in play-calling allows opposing defenses to key in on just one play type, and shut it down.
The average team has seen 29% of its under-center plays stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage this season, according to TruMedia. The Bengals have seen 35% of theirs stopped at or behind the line. The average team has gained 10 or more yards on 17.5% of under-center plays, while the Bengals have gained 10 or more yards on just 9% of theirs. Going by TruMedia’s EPA-based success rate metric, only 38% of the Bengals’ under-center plays have been positive, while the league average is 45.4%. Perhaps that’s at least in…
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