Personally, I think Flacco vs Burrow in his 1st game back, is probably a wash for the Bengals. It'd be nice to see Burrow back (he's one of favorites to watch) but with another game on Thursday, I get sitting him this week, sort of like the Ravens with Lamar a few weeks back. No Ja'Marr Chase hurts a lot. Not that his absence makes this a bad offense, but a more containable one for sure. I've seen a lot of people talking about being worried about Higgins with Chase out, and Higgins facing Gonzalez, and I don't get that at all. Higgins is probably a top-5 WR this week, and likely to see a season high in targets, and Gonzalez (while good) isn't some shutdown CB who follows guys. Drake London had his best game of the season against this defense a few weeks ago, and Egbuka had a nice game 2 weeks ago. I do expect the Patriots to shut down the run, so Chase Brown probably needs to hit in the pass game to pay off, and he very well might.
For NE, I can't help but feel like TreVeyon Henderson owners are gonna be really disappointed this week, both by workload, and natural regression. Stevenson probably sees the GL work, and its been a little fluky that they have had more rush TDs than pass TDs the last 2 weeks. I think this sets up as a really nice Drake Maye game, and I think Diggs stays hot, as he should avoid DJ Turner in the slot.
Patriots-31
Bengals-17