Ja'Marr Chase's fiery halftime speech inspires Bengals to win - ESPN

BALTIMORE — Ja'Marr Chase was fuming about what he saw from his team in the first half of Sunday's game against the Baltimore Ravens.

So when the team entered the locker room at halftime, the Cincinnati Bengals star wide receiver made sure he let his teammates know how he felt. The All-Pro unloaded in a halftime speech that let the offense know that things needed to be better.

Message received.

The Bengals scored five unanswered touchdowns in a 35-13 victory over the Baltimore Ravens. All of those points came in the second half following Chase's bold words.

«I came in here screaming, saying 'Somebody's gotta make a play for us, somebody gotta make a play,'» Chase said. «And I told our offense [that] we can't look at our defense the whole time. We gotta step this s--- up and make something work.»

Heading into Sunday's game, Cincinnati (4-2) had lost three straight games in AFC North play and dropped six of the last eight regular-season contests against the Ravens (3-3). And even though Baltimore was without star quarterback Lamar Jackson, it dominated the first half.

The Ravens outgained Cincinnati 258 to 59 in the first half and had 20 more offensive plays than the Bengals. According to ESPN Research, that was the lowest in any first half in any game featuring quarterback Joe Burrow, who Cincinnati drafted with the first overall pick in 2020. That was when Chase went off.

«I didn't like how we played,» Chase said. «We had (19) plays, maybe two or three possessions. And it didn't go our way at all. We had opportunities to get the ball out of our hands and Joe was getting too much pressure.»

But the second-half adjustments worked. Cincinnati, which gave up eight third-down possessions in the first half, buckled down after