NFL Betting Picks: Backing the Bengals +5 on the Road

The San Francisco 49ers 13-4 record tied for third best regular season tally in the NFL last season. The Niners started this year where they left off in 2022-23, rattling off five straight wins. However, the Bay Area representatives dropped their last two, both from the position of favorites of at least a touchdown.

In week 8 action, San Francisco is slated to host Cincinnati , who improved to 3-3 on the season following consecutive wins and covers versus Seattle and at Arizona (before their week off). The Bengals 12-4 regular season record last year was only modestly worse than San Francisco's. In fact, Cincinnati not only earned a Wildcard berth in the 2022-23 playoffs, but advanced all the way to the AFC Championship game (where they lost a tightly contested game to the Kansas City Chiefs).

Back to the present, we suspect both teams' near-term momentum trends will persist Sunday afternoon. As such, we are taking the points with Cincy on the road. The angle indicated in the following graphic supports our thinking.

While triggers are rare, this system's 26% long-term return on investment has proven statistically significant at the 95% confidence level, and has submitted losing ATS records in only five seasons over the examination period.

We suspect losing two straight versus the number is indicative of lapses in focus. Our hypothesis is that quality teams—i.e., those that made the prior post-season—from different divisions sport the talent and a surprise element that renders them particularly capable of exploiting such lulls in mental acuity (teams are less familiar with the offensive tendencies and capacities of opposition from opposing divisions, merely as a result of fewer matchups).

Based on this empirical observation and the accompanying intuitive rationale, we are comfortable adding the Bengals plus the points to our NFL betting picks list this week.

Happy betting!!