Join the huddle. Sign up here for Ravens updates in your inbox.

CINCINNATI — Forty minutes before kickoff Sunday afternoon, Alohi Gilman stood next to fellow Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton inside Paycor Stadium and listened to a heated message about warm-weather destinations. Cincinnati’s playoff hopes were perilously thin. End them, Hamilton told the Ravens’ assembled defensive backs. Send the Bengals to Cancún.

“We beat them, their season’s [expletive] over with,” Hamilton said. “Let’s go out and do that.”

Three-plus hours later, Gilman was running down the right sideline with an intercepted pass, on his way to a put-away defensive touchdown, and a message for the rest of the NFL: These are not the Ravens you want to get in the way of.

Coach John Harbaugh called the 24-0 win over the Bengals (4-10), which ended a two-game AFC North losing streak and rejuvenated the Ravens’ fading playoff hopes, “our best football game of the year.” It was certainly their most self-assured, a potent cocktail of swagger and bravado amid frigid conditions and dire straits.

The Ravens (7-7) shut out Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow for the first time since he was in college. They hit him 10 times and sacked him three times. They averaged 7.9 yards per carry, 12.5 yards per pass attempt and 7.9 yards per play. They won the turnover battle.

They walked the walk and talked their talk along the way, never backing down from a Cincinnati team that had wrecked the Ravens on Thanksgiving only 2 1/2 weeks earlier.

“As competitors, I think we’re pissed off we lost to them the first time, I’m not going to lie,” said Gilman, who outscored the Bengals single-handedly with his 84-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter, helped by a midplay handoff from outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy, who’d picked off Burrow’s red-zone pass. “So that’s kind of where I came from. But, at the end of the day, it’s about us. It’s about our defense. It’s about our team. But it was good to go out there and just put that on tape and let everyone know that we’re ready to roll.”

The Ravens couldn’t wait much longer to get going. After back-to-back home losses to the Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers (7-6), their odds of making the playoffs entering Sunday were about 27%. A third straight defeat would’ve sent their chances plunging to 14%, according to The New York Times’ playoff simulator.

Now the Ravens could wake up Tuesday morning back atop the AFC North. If the division-leading Steelers lose to the Miami Dolphins on Monday night, the Ravens would have about 50% odds of winning their third straight division title.

They prepared all week as if their season depended on Sunday’s game. Harbaugh called it their “best week of practice” this year; quarterback Lamar Jackson called it one of their best. Cornerback Marlon Humphrey said Friday’s session, normally only slightly more intense than a walk-through, was “so hard” that he was sore Saturday.

The Ravens’ challenge was also mental. They would have to handle the cold weather — the temperature at kickoff was 10 degrees, the coldest in Ravens history — and Burrow, a stone-cold killer at quarterback. Defensive coordinator Zach Orr urged the team on Saturday night, Humphrey said, to “just go out there and let it loose.”

“It’s really hard to beat us when we’re all on the same page,” Humphrey said. “That was Z.O.’s biggest message last night. If we’re all on the same page, it’s really hard to beat us, and I think he challenged us last night, and I think we accepted the challenge, and we showed up today.”

Burrow, who’d thrown 11 touchdowns and one interception in his three previous games against the Ravens, finished 25-for-39 for 225 yards and two interceptions; his 58.2 passer rating was the second worst of his career.

The Ravens rarely afforded Burrow comfort in the pocket. They pressured him early, ending a promising opening Bengals drive with a sack by outside linebacker Tavius Robinson, getting his first snaps since a Week 6 foot injury. They pressured him late, forcing Burrow to mistake Van Noy for an open passing window with a simulated pressure that ended with Gilman’s score.

All the while, the Ravens seemed to delight in reminding Burrow that they would be seeing him again soon. Outside linebacker Dre’Mont Jones, who had a game-high five QB hits, knocked Burrow down near the Ravens’ sideline late in the second quarter and had to be held back by teammates during the ensuing shouting match with Bengals players.

When rookie outside linebacker Mike Green ended the first half with a sack, he appeared to stare at Cincinnati players as they jogged to the locker room, down 14-0 before a sparse home crowd.

“You know how it goes,” Jones said after the Ravens posted their first shutout since 2018. “Their feelings get hurt, or they get to chirping because something happened, because I touched their quarterback, so they get all chippy and stuff like that. But I’m not worried about that. They’re going to talk — everybody is going to talk — but it’s about, can you finish the game and play the right way with your teammates? That’s what it’s really about.”

From the game’s opening play, Jones could sense the Bengals weren’t “lively.” It was “too cold for them,” he said. That’s what the Ravens’ offense was counting on. At some point, Cincinnati’s historically bad defense would have to endure the thunder-and-lightning combination of running backs Derrick Henry and Keaton Mitchell.

For the first half, the Bengals managed somewhat. Jackson’s arm did most of the damage. The Ravens broke a scoreless tie late in the second quarter after he checked into a play that got running back Rasheen Ali into the open field against a third-and-8 blitz. Ali’s 30-yard catch-and-run score was the first touchdown of his career.

Four minutes later, the Ravens doubled their lead with an impressive hurry-up drive. Taking possession with 1:05 remaining and three timeouts available, Jackson capped a five-play, 80-yard march with a 28-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Zay Flowers.

From there, the Ravens salted the game away on the ground. Right tackle Roger Rosengarten said the offensive line entered Sunday knowing, if the rushing attack could produce against Pittsburgh’s front (217 yards in Week 14), there was “no reason we can’t do it versus Cincinnati, too.”

So the Ravens went to work. After a 17-yard first half, Henry had five carries for 83 yards in the second. Mitchell added four carries for 41 yards after halftime. The Ravens finished with 189 rushing yards overall, 66 more than they had in Week 13, when the Bengals’ big second-half lead forced coordinator Todd Monken to look elsewhere for production.

“I mean, shoot, I don’t want to tackle Derrick in 9-degree weather,” Rosengarten said. “If we open up a couple of run lanes and got him on safeties, we could open up a couple of big run lanes and have explosive plays. Anytime we can run the ball like that, we’re going to be just fine on offense.”

Added left tackle Ronnie Stanley: “I think we’re just playing more up to our capability and standard. I think, in those other games, that wasn’t really shown. When we do that, it looks like what it’s supposed to look like.”

The Ravens had little tolerance for nonsense. One of their two penalties Sunday was an unsportsmanlike-conduct infraction late in the second quarter on Stanley, who was flagged for reacting to a Bengals player — seemingly defensive end Joseph Ossai — “rolling over trying to choke me out.”

Two plays later, Flowers was celebrating in the end zone, having raced by former Ravens safety Geno Stone on a double move.

“I believe all of us on offense had good rhythm,” said Jackson, who finished 8-for-12 for 150 yards, two touchdowns and an interception on a bobbled pass. “It felt like us, and we just have to keep pushing the envelope.”

These next two weeks will test the Ravens’ return to normalcy. Next Sunday night, they’ll welcome the AFC East-leading New England Patriots (11-3) and NFL Most Valuable Player candidate Drake Maye to Baltimore. One week after that, they’ll head to Lambeau Field to face the Green Bay Packers (9-4-1), another potential Super Bowl team. Both defenses will be better than Cincinnati’s. Maybe both offenses, too.

A victory in Week 16 or Week 17 would likely give the Ravens a shot at a win-and-they’re-in rematch with Pittsburgh in Week 18.

“With our backs against the wall, some people look at it as a bad thing,” Humphrey said. “I think we’re kind of looking at it as a good thing because you just have to do it or you don’t. There’s no more talking.”

Unless, of course, the situation calls for it.