#271 ASA PLAY ON Cincinnati Bengals -4.5 over Carolina Panthers, Sunday at 1 PM ET - The Bengals are 0-3 but they’ve outgained every opponent on YPP basis and they sit at 7th in the NFL in YPP margin. This is an absolute must win for the Bengals as they cannot afford to drop to 0-4. In their only other road game this season Cincy lost 26-25 @ Kansas City but had more yardage and better YPP numbers than the host Chiefs in that one. KC got a late pass interference call on 4th and long vs Cincinnati that set them up for the game winning FG. Last week the Bengals lost 38-33 vs Washington but once again, they completely outplayed the Commanders with 435 to 356 yards along with outgaining them by +1.1 YPP. They are back at full strength offensively with WR Higgins back and they should big success vs a Carolina defense that ranks near the bottom of the NFL in total defense, YPP allowed, and 3rd down conversion percentage. Carolina lost first 2 games (Saints & Chargers) by combined score of 73-13 and then made the switch last week to Andy Dalton at QB. The Panthers looked much better and picked up their first win of the season. However, we often see a team have a 1 game boost when switching QB’s with the team rallying. They caught the Raiders in a rough spot as well after upsetting Baltimore on the road a week earlier despite getting drastically outplayed in the stats. The entire problem for Carolina was not simply the QB situation. They have won only 3 of their last 20 games and now facing a desperate team that many considered a Super Bowl contender prior to the season. Cheap price here as well at -4.5. If this game would have been played a few weeks ago it definitely would have been north of a TD and possibly double digits. Bengals on Sunday.