While it's surely too late to save this season, the Cincinnati Bengals (3-8) welcome back quarterback Joe Burrow from a long injury absence in the primetime game of the Thanksgiving tripleheader in Week 13 on Thursday Night Football at the red-hot Ravens (6-5) in an AFC North matchup of co-last place against co-first place. Baltimore is -7 with a total of 51.5, and these teams usually play high-scoring games, for the 8:20 ET kick on NBC and not Prime Video as per usual for TNF.
Like always, Detroit hosts the first Thanksgiving game and Dallas the second while the annual night game has no set teams, and this is quite new territory for these franchises. Cincinnati's only other game on the holiday was a 2010 loss at the New York Jets. Baltimore is 2-0 on Turkey Day but hasn't played on it since 2013. The Ravens, one of just three franchises in league history with at least two Thanksgiving appearances without a loss, will wear their Purple Rising alternate helmets, which debuted in 2024, to pair with their all-purple Color Rush uniforms. Those are sharp.
There seems to be some argument among NFL talking heads about whether the Bengals should even let Burrow return at all this season considering his past injury history -- this will be the first time in his career he returns from IR in a season -- and the team's record. But the playoffs aren't an impossibility, just nearly so. The model gives the Bengals a 0.7% shot of getting there that only rises to 2.5% with a win.
DraftKings prices Cincinnati at +3000 to earn a spot and No at -20000. It would have to win out for any realistic shot, but it's now pretty evident coach Zac Taylor won't be back in 2026. He's the +250 second-favorite to be the next head coach fired after Atlanta's Raheem Morris (-150). Cincinnati will be a coveted job simply because of Burrow.
Baltimore was 1-5 with a minus-50 point differential entering its Week 7 bye but has dominated since then to tie sliding Pittsburgh for first in the AFC North, with the Ravens holding the current tiebreaker. Those clubs play next Sunday in Baltimore and then Week 18 in Steel Town. The SportsLine Projection Model currently gives the Ravens a 69.7% chance (equates to -230) of winning the division and 70.6% for any playoff spot. Those rise to 76.9% and 78.3%, respectively, with a win, but the playoff chances plummet to 56.2% with a loss. DraftKings has coach John Harbaugh's club as a -450 favorite in the AFC North, and it should win that.
We'll take you through every aspect of the Bengals vs. Ravens game that you need to know before you lock in your bets, including SportsLine expert picks, props, trends, DFS, injury information and everything else that will help you know which plays are worth making for the primetime matchup.
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