With the Pro Bowl festivities wrapping up in Las Vegas on Sunday — unfortunately not without incident — the complete focus of the NFL world shifts to Los Angeles and the Super Bowl, now just six days away, when the Rams and Bengals will meet.
Oddsmakers place the Rams as 4.5-point favorites entering the week, with a total of 48.5 points, and those numbers have not budged much since early movement pushed the Rams up and the total down a touch. Just about everyone will have predictions for Sunday, and that includes the folks over at EA Sports, who unveiled their official Madden prediction video, featuring Marshawn Lynch playing the role of fortuneteller — and making jokes about running the ball inside the 5.
The video just shows snippets of the action, but EA Sports released the scoring details of how their official simulation got to the Bengals winning 27-24 on a last minute field goal by Evan McPherson.
In the prediction, the Bengals enter halftime down 14-7, following touchdowns by Rams running back Sony Michel and red-hot wide receiver Cooper Kupp, with Ja’Marr Chase putting up the Bengals only touchdown. At the start of the second half, the Bengals lock up on defense with cornerback Eli Apple picking off Matthew Stafford and taking it to the house to tie the game. Joe Burrow takes the lead early in the fourth quarter on a touchdown pass to Tee Higgins, but Los Angeles answers with an Odell Beckham Jr. touchdown to level the game. In the final minutes, Burrow gets his team in field goal range creating another opportunity for Evan McPherson to step up and kick the winning field goal to secure a historic victory for the Bengals franchise.
It certainly tracks for how the Bengals’ playoff run has gone so far, as they’ve been the kings of second half comebacks and have leaned on their rookie kicker to send them through on a couple of occasions already. If you’re of the mind that the Madden prediction is correct, then you like Cincy on the money line (+200) and the Over on Sunday.