Green Bay A Near Double-Digit Favorite Over Bengals

NFL News - September 18th, 2009 - Written by John

Cincinnati at Green Bay -- These teams were on opposite sides of last-minute heroics in Week One. The Packers trudged through a sloppy first three quarters before Aaron Rodgers finally connected with Greg Jennings on a 50-yard go route to steal a win away from Chicago. Meanwhile, Cincinnati held the Denver Broncos to only six points for almost the entire game until a tipped pass by Leon Hall was caught by Denver's Brandon Stokley and taken 86-yards to the house with 11 seconds remaining to suck the wind out of the home crowd.

Sunday will provide a glimpse into what kind of road the team's will be on for the rest of the year.

It's no surprise the Packers are favored in this one. After all, they are back at Lambeau after their dramatic win and the crowd, no doubt, has not forgotten Rodgers' heroics. It will be a chance for Green Bay to start 2-0 for the third straight season. BetUS has the Pack at minus-9 with a symmetrical -110 payout both ways. If you like the pattern of stunners and go with the Bengals straight up, the moneyline payout is at +350, while taking the safe bet with Green Bay is at -450. The over/under is at a marginal 42 points.

Vegas is expecting the Bengals' offense to be moderately better than their season debut, with an individual over/under of 17 points. But that projected improvement is still not very good, they tied with Houston for the second-lowest over/under number on the week.

Cincinnati's Chad Ochocinco has been making waves in the headlines this week, saying he will try to do the Lambeau Leap if he scores. He previously told reporters he was working on using Twitter as part of a celebration, hoping to find loophole on the rule outlawing the use  of the social program during the game.

But Ochocinco has not been an elite scorer in quite some time (the last game he had 100-plus yards receiving was 2007 against the Dolphins).

To have any chance at a score, the wideout will need quarterback Carson Palmer to find a rhythm. The six-year veteran threw two interceptions in the opening loss and is still shaking the rust off an injury-ridden '08 campaign.

He'll need a better performance than that against Green Bay's defense, which was ferocious against Jay Culter. The unit had four picks for the first time since 2002.

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