Bengals open as sizable underdogs vs. 49ers

The 49ers seem to be pretty heavily favored at home against the Bengals.

The Cincinnati Bengals will be entering Week 8 fresh off a bye week. That is good because they start to open up to the most difficult part of their schedule, and it doesn’t get much harder than traveling to the West Coast to take on the San Francisco 49ers.

The Bengals (-110) are opening as 5.5-point underdogs against the 49ers (-110), according to DraftKings Sportsbook. It could have been much worse than that if Cincinnati hadn’t shown some signs of life in their last two games. That could explain why the point total is set at a healthy 45.5 points.

San Francisco still has to play the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football. That could change the line quite a bit since the last time we saw this team play, their offense looked much more pedestrian than we are used to seeing the Kyle Shanahan-led offense. Brock Purdy looked much more human after being handed his first loss in the regular season.

Still, that was the Cleveland Browns defense, who probably has one of the few defensive lines in the NFL who have the ability to actually control the line of scrimmage against the 49ers.

This is an opportunity for the Bengals to announce they are back after starting the season 1-3. Joe Burrow has looked more like himself each week after clearly not having recovered from his calf injury early in the season. It was Cincinnati’s defense that rose up against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 6, though.

It will definitely take a full team effort for this one to end in the Bengals factor. We have seen the team with the ability to do that the last few years, but we just haven’t seen it so far this season.

Will the Bengals pull off the big upset?