It's almost embarrassing how spoiled football fans are by the AFC. After last year's Josh Allen-Patrick Mahomes duel showcased the kind of incredible football we can expect from top young AFC squads for years to come, Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals showed they deserve just as much love and respect.
And now we have a repeat situation – a could-be-AFC Championship matchup between the Bills and Bengals to determine who will face off with the Chiefs in the actual AFC Championship.
Considering how good both these teams are and the stakes of this matchup, it probably surprises some fans to see the Bills come in as heavy 5.5-point favorites (and -260 on the moneyline) according to the latest NFL Playoff odds from FanDuel Sportsbook.
We've seen time and time again that you simply can't count out an underdog though, especially in a game of this magnitude in the NFL playoffs. So rather than just trusting the betting lines, let's take a deeper look at some of the industry's b iggest projection models and NFL experts to take the temperature on how this game will shake out.
Bills vs Bengals Projections
ESPN FPI:'Bills (67.0%)
numberFire:'Bills (65.5%)
FiveThirtyEight:'Bills (64%)
Moneyline Projection:'Bills (69.5%)
Projected Winner:'Bills (4)
Whether you're a believe in advanced analytics or in the power of betti ng markets, either way the message from the projections is crystal-clear: this is the Bills' game to lose. All four sources here are pretty close in projecting the Bills to win this game roughly two-thirds of the time, with the average of the four sources giving them a 66.5% chance (and therefore a 33.5% chance for the Bengals).
What may interest you the most, however, is that this actually points to the Bengals' moneyline being a better bet than the Bills. At +215, you need the Bengals to win just 31.7% of the time to break even. If you're a believer in analytics and projections, that could be the best bet of the game for you.
If you're more interested in who the experts are picking, however, we'll take a look at that too.
Bills vs Bengals Expert Picks
- Stephania Bell:'Bills
- Matt Bowen:'Bills
- Mike Clay:'Bills
- Jeremy Fowler:'Bengals
- Dan Graziano:'Bengals
- Jason Reid:'Bills
- Seth Wickersham:'Bengals
ESPN Total:'Bills (4), Bengals (3)
- Albert Breer:'Bengals
- Mitch Goldich:'Bengals
- Gary Gramling:'Bills
- Conor Orr:'Bengals
- John Pluym: Bengals
Sports Illustrated Total:'Bengals (4), Bills (1)
- Pete Prisco:'Bills
- Jason La Canfora:'Bills
- Will Brinson:'Bengals
- Jared Dubin:'Bills
- Ryan Wilso n:'Bengals
- John Breech:'Bengals
- Dave Richard:'Bills
- Jamey Eisenberg:'Bills
CBS Total:'Bills (5), Bengals (3)
Talk about a great playoff matchup. Two exciting young quarterbacks, two incredible teams around them, and a matchup that has our highlighted experts torn exactly 50-50.
Of course, if you're a bettor then this is especially interesting. We already had the projection models pointing to value on the Bengals moneyline, and the experts are even higher on Cincy than the nu mbers are. We do tend to see experts have a bias toward picking underdogs, especially come playoff time, but there's a clear overall trend across all sources pointing the Bengals being drastically underrated by the betting lines this week.