With Jordan Palmer expected to see more action for the Bengals tonight, the St. Louis Rams have the advantage as the underdogs at Cincinnati.
As many people know Week 3 in preseason is a "dress rehearsal" for NFL teams and considered to be the closest pace to a regular season game. Bengals Coach Marvin Lewis has said he doesn't feel this is a "dress rehearsal" for his team and starting running back Cedric Benson agreed with his head coach. It shows because Lewis is just 1-4 ATS in "dress rehearsals," aka Week 3 of preseason games. He said he's not one of these guys that will have starters play into the third quarter of the third preseason game, and it will be much more like the New England game as far as the rotation. We don't want to lay any points with a coach or players with that attitude coming into this game.
Both Carson Palmer and Marc Bulger will be out for this game and we have to give the edge to the Rams as far as the QB rotation goes. The starters will play most of the first half in this game for the Bengals. J.T. O'Sullivan will get the start again at QB and Lewis has said that Jordan Palmer will see increased playing time this week.
The Rams will be play starters the whole first half and Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo says he may even play them in some of the second half depending on what the total plays are at that point in the game. Don't expect to see Steven Jackson get more than five carries and backup Kenneth Darby isn't expected to play. So we will see Antonio Pittman (51 yards, 5.6 YPC) and Samkon Gado (105 yards, 9.5 YPC, 1 TD) to expect a lot of reps.
O'Sullivan has had a solid preseason putting up 241 yards and two TDs so far. The Rams will let Kyle Boller get the start who played decent and was 9/16 for 91 yards last week filling in for Bulger. A slight edge here goes to O'Sullivan who has better playmakers surrounding him, but once the second half comes around it's a whole different story.
The second half rotation edge is huge for the Rams in this game. Palmer has yet to lead his offense to any points in the preseason when he is under center. As a matter of fact, the Bengals haven't scored any second half points in the preseason yet. Last week against the Patriots' backups, he was 2/7 for 45 yards passing. The Rams have two guys battling for the final QB roster spot in Keith Null and Brock Berlin who have both impressed us this preseason (Berlin 98 yds 1 TD/0 Int 68.7%, Null 72 yds 1TD /1 INT 72.7%). They should be giving it their all this week to prove why they deserve a job as the third-string QB on this team.
The 20-13 loss for St.Louis last week against Atlanta is a little deceiving. Matt Ryan led the Falcons' first string offense and looked in regular season form going on two long drives and putting up an easy 14 points. Once the second- and third-string players came in for both squads the Rams outscored them 13-6. Now keep in mind the Bengals second- and third-string players have yet to put up any points so far in preseason as we said earlier.
The Rams have outscored opponents 24-16 in the second half of preseason games while the Bengals have been outscored 10-0 in the final 30 minutes of their two games. Also remember the Patriots, who the Bengals beat last week 7-6, have a very shaky QB rotation once Tom Brady is done.
When O'Sullivan comes out we can expect Spag to drop one safety low and play one high against Palmer to force the Bengals to air it out rather then pound the rock. With Palmer in the game that's risky for the Bengals considering his abilities or lack thereof.
Free Pick: Rams +2½ (-105)