Burrow's Big Day Carries Bengals Past Titans 43-36

Joe Burrow threw for 472 yards and six touchdowns, and the Cincinnati Bengals held off the Tennessee Titans 43-36 at Paycor Stadium on Sunday. Tennessee jumped out to a surprising 10-0 lead and refused to go away, but Burrow's arm ultimately decided it. The 79 combined points made for one of the wilder shootouts of the season, and the seven-point margin tells you how much work the Bengals had to do after spotting the visitors an early cushion.

Our pre-game premium pick leaned on Cincinnati covering a line that had ballooned to -13.5 after the Jeffery Simmons trade. That call missed. The Bengals won, but they never came close to covering, and the game flew past the total for an Under loss. The moneyline play on Cincinnati did cash — Burrow made sure of that — but the margin was nowhere near the 32-14 scoreline the model imagined.

What the result reinforces: late-week line moves on defensive news can overcorrect. A three-point shift assumes clean dominance, but Tennessee's offense showed up and kept the game within reach all afternoon. The lesson for future picks is to treat big, news-driven line jumps with more skepticism — especially when the favorite's defense, not its offense, is the reason for the move. The moneyline held, but the number was the trap.