Everyone's picking the Bengals. Big mistake.

Reason 1: Burrow goes down twice

Jacksonville has eight sacks in three games: five of Deshaun Watson, none of Bo Nix, three of Drake Maye.

Burrow has been sacked seven times: once by Tampa Bay, five times in Houston, once in Pittsburgh. And guard Dalton Risner (knee) missed Wednesday and Thursday before practicing fully Friday. He's questionable.

Reason 2: Cincinnati scores 20 or fewer

The Jaguars have held all three opponents to 20 or fewer: 10, 20 and 6. That's 12 a game.

Fair warning: Cincinnati has scored 33, 20 and 27. Twenty is a low bar for this offense, and that's exactly why it's a call.

Reason 3: Jacksonville runs for 100

Jacksonville keeps the ball away from you. It has run for 358 yards on 86 carries: 126, 95, 137. Bhayshul Tuten leads at 204 yards.

Joe Burrow can't score from the bench. Every 100-yard rushing day is a quarter of football he spends watching.

Same record, different teams

Jacksonville is 82 scored, 36 allowed: plus 46. Cincinnati is 80 scored, 63 allowed: plus 17.

Burrow is not the problem. He is 73 of 103 for 743 yards with a 106.6 rating. The defense is. Tampa Bay turned it over four times and still scored 27. Pittsburgh scored 30 while Cincinnati lost two fumbles. A team can win like that. Nobody should call it dominant.

The median line across the nine US sportsbooks we track has Cincinnati -2.5 on Saturday. ESPN's own model gives Jacksonville a 54.6 percent chance. The market disagrees with the model, and we side with the model.

Even our own numbers disagree

Here's the awkward part. XOCP's projection, which adds up every player's projected points, has Cincinnati 27.9, Jacksonville 25.2. That's Cincinnati by 2.6, almost exactly the Vegas line.

We think both are reading Joe Burrow's arm and missing the scoreboard. A projection adds up what players should do. It doesn't see a defense that has allowed 36 points in three games, or a run game that keeps Burrow on the sideline. So this is our call, made against our own model, and it gets graded like every other one.

The case against us

Jacksonville has lost all three meetings with Cincinnati in Trevor Lawrence's career. Last year's was a 31-27 heartbreaker in Cincinnati: Burrow left with a toe injury, and Jake Browning leapt in from a yard out with 18 seconds left.

Lawrence isn't pretending otherwise. “It's a team we haven't beat and we lost a tough one there early in the season last year,” he said Wednesday.

The Jaguars' only road trip was a loss at Denver, with 14 allowed in the fourth quarter. The final injury report cuts both ways. Jacksonville lists corners Christian Braswell (knee) and Montaric Brown (hamstring) and tackle Albert Regis (elbow) as questionable, which is thin cover against Burrow. Jakobi Meyers (thumb) practiced fully Friday and has no designation. Cincinnati has safety Kyle Dugger and receiver Colbie Young out; safety Bryan Cook, tackle B.J. Hill, linebacker Swayze Bozeman and Risner are questionable. Corner Jalen Davis went on injured reserve Tuesday.