Cincinnati Bengals vs. Minnesota Vikings Betting Preview, Odds, Predictions

The Minnesota Vikings will head to Ohio the Cincinnati Bengals home opener as they come into Paul Brown Stadium to take on the Bengals at 1:00 p.m. EST on FOX. Both teams will want to start their season off right in the first full stadium game in over a year.

Odds

The Vikings hold a slight advantage with a spread of -3.5 against the Bengals. The odds to bet the Bengals moneyline is -130 and the Vikings are listed at +105. The total point for this game is set at 46.5.

In their past five meetings, Minnesota has won three, out-scoring the Bengals 110-99 in those five games.

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Vikings Preview

The Vikings offense went for just over 400 yards per game last year in total. Their defense gave up about the same amount of yards against. The big strong point for the Vikings' offense was their running game, in which they averaged 142.7 rush yards per game.

The main star of the offense, which gives the Vikings the rushing advantage, is phenom Dalvin Cook. He averaged 97.3 yards per game and scored a total of 16 touchdowns for the Vikings in 2020. The receiving core led by Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen will be hard to stop in this as they combined for 162 catches on 2,325 yards last season.

The defense has been much improved in the offseason through players getting healthy and adding some personnel. They were pretty bad last year, so their first game against the Bengals should be a good test for them.

Bengals Preview

The Bengals will be relying on the offense heavily in this game and probably all season. The offense went for just under 350 yards per game, and the defense gave up almost 400. Granted, the Bengals did finish the season without their star quarterback, Joe Burrow, but they are still very young overall on both sides of the ball.

The Bengals were very pass-heavy last year because their offensive line was and still is nothing to write home about. Joe Mixon is a solid running back but can’t do much behind a poor offensive line. He rushed for only 47.6 yards per game and scored three touchdowns on the ground. Burrow threw for 268.8 yards per game and threw 13 touchdowns and five interceptions. The receiving core with Chase, Boyd, and Higgins is the strongest part of the offense.

The defense for the Bengals may be less talented than last year, losing both Carl Lawson and William Jackson. Jessie Bates will be the star safety that will be the leader of this defense this season.

Expected Outcome

Even though the Bengals did not look good on paper last year, I think this game will be a close one. The Bengals will be playing in front of their home crowd, which should fire them up to play hard and may be able to pull it out if they can keep it close going into halftime.