Buffalo Bills vs Cincinnati Bengals Odds, Lines, Picks & Prediction for Sunday Night Football Week 9

Bills running back James Cook tries to get around Bengals Mike Hilton.The Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals meet on Sunday Night Football in Week 9The Bengals beat the Bills 27-10 in Buffalo in last year’s NFL playoffsSee the Bills vs Bengals odds, spread, predictions, and expert picks for Nov. 5, 2023

The schedule-makers have delivered in Week 9 with a massive primetime matchup between the Buffalo Bills (5-3, 1-2 away, 3-5 ATS) and Cincinnati Bengals (4-3, 2-1 home, 3-3-1 ATS) on Sunday Night Football. The Bills and Bengals met in the AFC Divisional Round during the 2023 postseason, with the Bengals running away with a 27-10 road win at Orchard Park. But the odds for tonight’s game (8:20 pm ET at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati) portend a much closer contest.

Buffalo Bills vs Cincinnati Bengals Odds

The Week 9 NFL odds currently list the Bengals as slim 1.5-point home favorites and -126 on the moneyline. The Bills are +108 road underdogs while the total is sitting at a Week 9-high of 50.5 (tied with the Dolphins/Chiefs total). Both teams have skewed slightly to the under this season with Buffalo 3-5 O/U and Cincinnati 3-4 O/U heading into Week 9.

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Odds as of Nov. 5 on the FanDuel app. Claim the FanDuel promo for November.

Two of the top-five favorites in the Super Bowl odds before the season began, both find themselves in precarious positions in the NFL playoff bracket. Buffalo currently holds the #6 seed but has played one more game than the trio of teams at 4-3, which includes the #9 Bengals.

A win on Sunday wouldn’t guarantee that Cincinnati moves into a playoff position, but it would leapfrog the Bengals past the Bills for the time being.

Bengals Offense Finally Starting to Click

Largely absent during their 1-3 start to the season, the prolific Cincinnati offense has finally started to click during their current three-game win streak. The Bengals, who averaged just 12.3 PPG from Weeks 1 to 4, have raised that to 27.3 over the past three games. Quarterback Joe Burrow quadrupled his TD total in that span (two in the first four games and eight in the last three) while Ja’Marr Chase has an eye-popping 372 receiving yards.

On the surface, health appears to be the biggest contributing factor to the turn around; Burrow was obviously laboring under a calf injury early in the year, and didn’t have his full complement of receivers. Now the LSU product looks to be at full speed, and Chase, Tyler Boyd, and Tee Higgins are all in the lineup.

Last week’s 31-17 road win over San Francisco was inarguably Cincinnati’s best performance of the season to date.  Despite a turnover inside the San Francisco five-yard line just before halftime, Cincinnati became the first team to put up 30-plus on the Niners this year, something only two opponents accomplished in the entire 2022 regular season. But it should be noted that the Bengals have had excellent turnover luck so far, sitting at +7 in turnover margin (third-best in the NFL).

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Bills Struggling to Find Consistency

The narrative surrounding Buffalo runs largely counter to that of Cincinnati: after a 3-1 start, the Bills are just 2-2 over their past four and their usually-high-powered offense has gone uncharacteristically limp. Buffalo averaged 34.8 PPG from Weeks 1 to 4, but that dropped to just 20.8 in the last four games. That includes a head-scratching 14-9 home victory over the 2-6 Giants, which was one completion away from being a straight-up loss as 15.5-point favorites.

Should the Bills have been called for holding on the last play (a pass in the end zone to Giants TE Darren Waller)?

NBC #SNF rules analyst Terry McAulay talks it over with Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth. 🏈🦓📺🎙️ pic.twitter.com/gDq0cFH8tg

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 16, 2023

Quarterback Josh Allen still has excellent numbers on the whole. Allen is averaging just over 270 passing yards per game with a 71.7 completion percentage (which would be the highest of his career), 17 TDs, and eight interceptions. His 101.5 passer rating is the second-best of his six-year career.

Allen is listed with a passing yards over/under ranging from 270.5 to 272.5 in the NFL player props for Week 9, which is slightly lower than his counterpart Borrow (274.5 to 280.5).

Despite recent performances, DVOA still says Buffalo is a more efficient team than Cincinnati, and by a sizable margin. The Bills rank third in overall DVOA after Week 8 while the Bengals are down in 13th and still sport a -13 point differential despite their extant three-game win streak. That discrepancy is why Buffalo actually opened as a slight road favorite in this game last Sunday night. But the NFL public betting action has moved the line three full points in Cincinnati’s direction.

Bills vs Bengals Prediction

The opening line of Buffalo -1.5 clearly shocked most bettors as much as it did me. Yes, Cincinnati struggled out of the gate, and Buffalo is an undeniably solid team with a high ceiling, but the Bengals dominated this matchup last year – on the road – and have turned a corner, both in terms of their on-field play and their injury woes. (Don’t pay much mind to running back Joe Mixon’s “questionable” tag on the injury report. Cincinnati’s lead back was dealing with a chest issue during the week but practiced in full on Friday and should be close to full speed.)

The Bills meanwhile are dealing with several missing pieces, especially on defense, with LB Matt Milano and CB Tre’Davious White on the IR, plus LBs AJ Klein (back) and Baylon Spector (hamstring) ruled out for Week 9.

Don’t expect a carbon copy of last postseason’s rout, but Cincinnati offers better value to win straight-up as -126 home favorites.

Buffalo vs Cincinnati Pick: Bengals moneyline (-126)

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