The Cincinnati Bengals haven\u2019t had much success against the Baltimore Ravens the past four years, but the last four road games in the series have been in primetime, which tends to favor the home team in spotlight AFC North matchups.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati has won just two of the last eight meetings since a 41-17 blowout win in daylight at M&T Bank in 2021.<\/p>\n
With all four teams in the division sitting on two losses, this particular matchup is an opportunity to set the tone for a title run. The Bengals seek a return to the playoffs with an AFC North championship in mind, and they already lost their first divisional game at Pittsburgh in Week 3.<\/p>\n
Here are five things to know about the matchup:<\/p>\n
Bengals almost back to full strength<\/p>\n
The Bengals\u2019 bye week came at a good time to get players healthy, as the injury report reflected this week. Safety Kyle Dugger, who hasn\u2019t played since a Week 3 quad injury, was the lone player limited in a practice last week for anything other than rest, but coach Zac Taylor told reporters Friday that Dugger will play Sunday.<\/p>\n
Bryan Cook and Tee Higgins are another week healthier after coming back from injuries to play at Miami in Week 5, and wide receiver Colbie Young is now back in full, as well, following a knee injury.<\/p>\n
Baltimore, meanwhile, had several injuries to watch, most notably with Lamar Jackson returning to practice following an ankle issue that sidelined him the last two games. He\u2019s listed as questionable for Sunday, along with defensive tackle Broderick Washington (ankle), while safety Jaylinn Hawkins (knee) and linebacker Tavius Robinson (pectoral) are out and cornerback T.J. Tampa Jr. (knee) is doubtful.<\/p>\n
Preparing for Jackson<\/p>\n
The Bengals spent all week preparing like Jackson would be playing, but he was limited all week, and both he and Tyler Huntley spoke to media Friday as though either one could be starting.<\/p>\n
Huntley is 1-1 in his two starts, passing for 429 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. In Jackson\u2019s four games, he completed 70.8% of his passes for 967 yards with six touchdowns and one interception to go along with 144 yards rushing and one touchdown on the ground.<\/p>\n
Jackson\u2019s mobility coming back from an ankle injury is a big question with his style of play, but the Bengals have a gameplan for that if he does play.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a very elusive quarterback,\u201d Bengals defensive end Boye Mafe said. \u201cHe\u2019s very talented. I mean, you don\u2019t just get MVP in the league for no reason. So, it\u2019s one of those things that you have to keep in mind, and also you got to make sure you keep a game plan to, you know, keep him in the pocket and change things up, change pitches for him, and just make sure that we\u2019re doing our best to limit what he can do out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
A forgiving Trey Hendrickson?<\/p>\n
Ravens defensive end Trey Hendrickson told Baltimore media last week he forgives the Bengals for how things went down at the end of his five years in Cincinnati, but his teammates said they expect him to have some extra motivation facing his former team.<\/p>\n
Bengals players said they look forward to the matchup and only said good things about what Hendrickson meant to the team, despite his frustrations in not being able to secure a long-term deal with the organization over his last three seasons.<\/p>\n
Hendrickson has 2.0 sacks in four games for Baltimore after missing Weeks 4 and 5 because of finger surgery.<\/p>\n
The Bengals are well aware of what Hendrickson does best and will be game-planning around their former sack leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, we saw how good a player Trey is while he was here, and so he absolutely falls in the category of edge guys that you got to have a plan for,\u201d Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said. \u201cSo, we\u2019ll have a plan for Trey, and we\u2019d be foolish not to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matchup to watch<\/p>\n
Bengals cornerback DJ Turner said he is looking forward to matching up with one of the best receivers he will face this season in Zay Flowers.<\/p>\n
Flowers is having a career year so far, recording 474 yards and two touchdowns on 32 catches, which puts him on pace for 1,601 yards receiving this season, his fourth in the NFL. He finished with 1,211 yards and five touchdowns last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust dynamic,\u201d Bengals defensive coordinator Al Golden said of Flowers. \u201cThey\u2019re getting him the ball in space. They\u2019re very creative with how they\u2019re doing it. His run after catch is excellent. His ability to stop and start is among the elite, so you really have to do a great job tackling him in space. And obviously he\u2019s the threat to go deep at any moment in the game as well. Really good football player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turner has had some tough assignments since establishing himself as the team\u2019s top corner last year, and opposing quarterbacks seem to be targeting him less. When they do? Golden said the biggest part of being a cover corner is \u201cdenying your man, and he does a really good job of denying the go-to guy.\u201d The next step is finishing more plays with an interception. He still awaits his first pick this season and only has two in his career \u2014 both last year.<\/p>\n
Eliminating explosives and creating turnovers<\/p>\n
Derrick Henry, Jackson and Flowers especially give the Ravens big-play potential, and this is a big test for the Bengals\u2019 defense, which has struggled allowing too many explosives.<\/p>\n
Miami especially exposed that with six plays of 13 yards or more as part of its 217 yards rushing, including a 39-yard scramble by Malik Willis, and the Ravens are third in explosive play rate at 12 percent.<\/p>\n
The focus is on getting the stop, but the Bengals could use more turnovers, as well, and that seems to be a recipe for success for teams against Henry, who has fumbled four times since the start of the 2025 season (23 games). That is the second-most in the NFL over that span, behind Buffalo running back James Cook III (five fumbles), and it proved costly last week against the Browns when he lost the ball at his own 35-yard line to set up a Browns touchdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s critical, I mean, just winning the turnover battle in general in a division game like this,\u201d Golden said. \u201cI can think of many times we played the Ravens and you feel like you leave the game with three possessions. And so, if you lose or gain one, that\u2019s always critical.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cincinnati Bengals haven\u2019t had much success against the Baltimore Ravens the past four years, but the last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1036012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,7,6,169],"class_list":["post-1036011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimoreravens","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-ravens"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117497172058243904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1036011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1036012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1036011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1036011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1036011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}