Cincinnati Bengals
Cincinnati Bengals Saturday afternoon the AFC North Champion Cincinnati Bengals host the New York Jets in the Wild-Card round of the NFL playoffs.

Last week in the Meadowlands, coach Marvin Lewis and the Bengals simplified their game plan against New York in the regular-season finale and lost 37-0. However, this week, expect Cincinnati to open up the playbook and be ready to take on the Jets.

NFL odds makers see this week's match-up pretty close even though the Bengals took a beating last time out. Cincinnati is even listed as a slight favorite in this one. The spread is at about a field goal as the line is sitting at, the Bengals -2.5 with the total in the contest set at 34.5.

The Jets really took it to the Bengals, but that may have been part of coach Lewis's plan.

"We went into the game knowing (the rematch)
was one of the possibilities," Lewis said. "Based upon that, I told the coordinators how I wanted to do things, and we based the game plan on that."

The Bengals will have running back Cedric Benson back this week. Cincinnati's leading rusher was held out of last week's regular season finale to rest his legs. New York took advantage of the Bengals lack of a running game.

In fact the New York defense did not allow the Bengals offense to do much at all. Quarterback Carson Palmer was just 1-of-11 before being pulled for back-up J.T. O'Sullivan. He didn't fair too much better going 3-of-8 for 31 yards.

This will not be the same Bengals team we saw a week ago, however the strong Jets running game and top-rated defense will continue to give Cincinnati fit.

Take New York getting the points, although this one will be a lot closer, the Jets will win again.