Trailing 13-0 and going nowhere, the Cincinnati Bengals got an earful from their best player at halftime. Then they scored 35 in a row.
There are halftime adjustments, and then there’s everything that happened in the visitors’ locker room at M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday.
The Bengals left the field 13-0 against a Baltimore Ravens team playing without Lamar Jackson. Joe Burrow had 43 passing yards. Tee Higgins had no catch. FOX19’s Jeremy Rauch called him “arguably the most incompetent half of the Joe Burrow era,” and no one watching was going to contradict him.
Thirty minutes later, it was 35-13 Bengals. And according to Burrow, it all started with Ja’Marr Chase.
“Ja’Marr came in there and kind of took on everyone,” Burrow told CBS after the game. “And (he) got everyone excited. You know, that definitely plays a role. But at the end of the day, we just executed.”
Amarius Mims summed up the reaction from the room: “I have always said that when (number 1) speaks, everyone should shut up and listen. »
Local media member Mike Petraglia (and others) caught up with Chase in the locker room after the win. Petraglia asked Chase what happened at halftime to flip the switch.
Besides Chase’s colorful language at the start of his speech, he also challenged his fellow stars on offense to play up to their potential.
“And I told our offense we can’t look at our defense all the time,” Chase said. “We need to step this shit up and make something work. I’ve done it before and I cried last time, but I didn’t cry this time.”
This is not a quote you hear about every player. Chase always led the production. On Sunday, he led with his voice, and a locker room full of guys apparently decided he was right.
He told us it was going to happen
Here’s the part I love. Chase basically laid out the plan three days before the game.
“No, it’s just the fourth quarter, bro. It just ended,” Chase said Thursday when asked what decides Bengals-Ravens games. “If you look at it, those eight games are the fourth quarter. That’s what it comes down to every time you play Baltimore.”
And his favorite part of a road game? “Silence the crowd. »
The Bengals did both. They finished, scoring on five straight possessions in the second half (all touchdowns), and by the fourth quarter the only noise in Baltimore was coming from the Cincinnati sideline.
Whatever Chase said, the offense heard it loudest. The first drive of the third quarter went nine plays and 66 yards, ending with Burrow finding Mike Gesicki in the corner of the end zone to make the score 13-7. Jim Nantz said this on the CBS call: “The dynamic completely changed here in the third quarter. »
Higgins, invisible in the first half, got the nod in the third and finished with six catches for 148 yards. Burrow was 16 of 18 for 249 yards and four touchdowns after halftime, after going 6 of 12 for 43 yards before.
And rightly so, whoever lit the fuse had to put an exclamation point on it. Burrow hit Chase for a 2-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter to make the score 28-13, Chase’s 10th career touchdown against the Ravens. He finished with five catches for 62 yards and the score, including an electric 33-yard run on a short pass a few plays before the touchdown.
The defense also held strong, shutting out Baltimore after halftime with four sacks of Tyler Huntley and an interception. According to Bengals On SI, Cincinnati became just the 10th team in NFL history to be shut out in the first half and score 35 or more in the second.
Burrow, being Burrow, wasn’t going to take all the credit for a pep talk. “In the end, we just executed.” And he’s right: speeches don’t make 16 out of 18 and don’t win in the trenches.
But Burrow didn’t dismiss the question, and Mims didn’t hesitate either. This team has looked flat for stretches this season, while committing a myriad of self-inflicted mistakes in its losses. On Sunday, his best player decided it wasn’t acceptable, said so, then came out and supported his position. This is what leadership looks like on a team trying to make a comeback in January.
The Bengals are 4-2 and 1-1 in the AFC North, with Tennessee visiting Paycor Stadium next Sunday. Maybe Chase should take the pre-match speech for that one too.
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