{"id":20247,"date":"2011-12-14T19:44:41","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T00:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20247"},"modified":"2011-12-14T19:44:41","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T00:44:41","slug":"nfl-picks-week-15-cincinnati-bengals-vs-st-louis-rams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-picks-week-15-cincinnati-bengals-vs-st-louis-rams-20247\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Picks Week 15: Cincinnati Bengals vs. St. Louis Rams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Bengals at St. Louis Rams
\nSunday, 12\/18\/11, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Cincinnati -6.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Cincinnati -6.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 38.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 40.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cincinnati Bengals RB Cedric Benson is the key to Sunday's game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cincinnati is now on the outside looking in the AFC playoff race after dropping four of five games, which includes a 20-19 setback to the Houston Texans as 2.5-point home favorites.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve still got opportunities and we\u2019ve got to take advantage of them,\u201d commented Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis.\u00a0 Playing inside a dome hasn\u2019t been the best situation for the franchise, posting a 24-36-1 all-time mark, while going 1-2 ATS over the last two-plus years in that particular situation.\u00a0 Cincinnati is 4-14 ATS as a favorite over the last two-plus seasons, including a 1-7 ATS mark when laying 3.5 to 9.5 points in that time frame.<\/p>\n

The Bengals offense has produced only one touchdown in each of the last two games and rookie quarterback Andy Dalton has gone a combined 27 of 52 for 324 yards in those contests.\u00a0 Cincinnati desperately needs running back Cedric Benson to maintain his focus for the entire game, as he rushed for 92 yards on 13 carries in the first half last week, only to gain minus-one yard in the final 30 minutes.\u00a0 On the defensive side of the ball, the team allowed Texans rookie T.J. Yates to throw 300 yards in just his second career start.<\/p>\n

St. Louis welcomes in Cincinnati for the first time since the 2003 season and will look to even up the all-time series in its 12th overall meeting.\u00a0 The Rams have lost four consecutive games due to scoring just 40 combined points over that time frame, which includes a 30-13 loss to the Seattle Seahawks as nine-point road underdogs on Monday Night Football.\u00a0 \u201cThere are a lot of things we have to overcome, but we\u2019ve got to overcome them,\u201d commented Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo.\u00a0 St. Louis is 0-4 ATS as an underdog of 3.5 to 9.5 points this year.<\/p>\n

The Rams doesn\u2019t anticipate having starting quarterback Sam Bradford in this contest after being very sore Tuesday following the prime-time event.\u00a0 He threw for 193 passing yards versus the Seahawks, but completed just 10 of 27 passes and finished with a 49.9 passer rating.\u00a0 St. Louis will need to get ready to battle in the trenches to remain competitive against a physical team, ranking last in the NFL in allowing 156.8 rushing yards per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Rams due to their 4-0 ATS mark in the last four meetings, while the Bengals have failed to cover five straight games as road favorites of 3.5 to 10 points.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Bengals at St. Louis Rams Sunday, 12\/18\/11, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Cincinnati -6.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Cincinnati -6.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 38.5 Current Total:\u00a0 40.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Cincinnati is now on the outside looking in the AFC playoff race after dropping four of five games, which includes a 20-19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[414,3386,190,302,31,623,863],"class_list":["post-20247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-afc","tag-andy-dalton","tag-cedric-benson","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-nfl","tag-sam-bradford","tag-st-louis-rams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20248,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20247\/revisions\/20248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}