Down 13-0 and going nowhere, the Cincinnati Bengals got an earful from their best player at halftime. Then they scored 35 straight.

There are halftime adjustments, and then there’s whatever happened in the visitors’ locker room at M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday.

The Bengals walked off the field down 13-0 to a Baltimore Ravens team playing without Lamar Jackson. Joe Burrow had 43 passing yards. Tee Higgins didn’t have a catch. FOX19’s Jeremy Rauch called it “arguably the most incompetent half in the Joe Burrow era,” and nobody watching was going to argue.

Thirty minutes later, it was 35-13 Bengals. And by Burrow’s account, it started with Ja’Marr Chase.

“Ja’Marr went in there and got after everybody a little bit,” Burrow said after the game to CBS. “And (he) got everybody fired up. You know, that certainly plays a part. But at the end of the day, we just executed.”

Amarius Mims summed up how the room took it: “I’ve always said, when (No.) 1 talks, everybody needs to 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.

Aside from the colorful language from Chase at the beginning 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 the whole time,” Chase said. “We gotta 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.”

That’s not a quote you hear about every player. Chase has always led with production. Sunday, he led with his voice, and a locker room full of guys apparently decided he was right.

He told us this was coming

Here’s the part I love. Chase basically laid out the blueprint three days before the game.

“Nah, it’s just fourth quarter, bro. It’s just finishing,” Chase said Thursday when asked what decides Bengals-Ravens games. “If you looking at it, all eight of those games is fourth quarter. That’s what it comes down to every time you play Baltimore.”

And his favorite thing about a road game? “Shut the crowd up.”

The Bengals did both. They finished, scoring on five straight second-half possessions (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 it 13-7. Jim Nantz said it on the CBS call: “The momentum has completely shifted here in the third quarter.”

Higgins, invisible in the first half, caught the go-ahead touchdown in the third and finished with six catches for 148 yards. Burrow went 16-of-18 for 249 yards and four touchdowns after halftime, after going 6-of-12 for 43 yards before it.

And fittingly, the guy who lit the fuse got to put an exclamation point on it. Burrow hit Chase for a 2-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter to make it 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 scamper on a short pass a few plays before the touchdown grab.

The defense held up its end too, shutting Baltimore out after halftime with four sacks of Tyler Huntley and an interception. Per 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 hand all the credit to a pep talk. “At the end of the day, we just executed.” And he’s right: speeches don’t throw 16-of-18 or win in the trenches.

But Burrow didn’t brush the question off, and Mims didn’t hedge either. This team has looked flat for stretches this season, while also committing a myriad of self-inflicted mistakes in their lossses. On Sunday, its best player decided that wasn’t acceptable, said so, and then went out and backed it up. That’s what leadership looks like on a team trying to get back to January.

The Bengals are 4-2 and 1-1 in the AFC North, with Tennessee coming to Paycor Stadium next Sunday. Maybe Chase should take the pregame speech for that one, too.