The Ravens (7-3) outlasted the Bengals (4-6) in another insane nail-biter that featured 34 combined points in the fourth quarter.

Here are five things we learned from the game.

The Ravens and Bengals play cuckoo bananas games, but we learned nothing new: When did it become clear the Ravens would not go down to tidy defeat after the Bengals went up 21-7 on Ja’Marr Chase’s soul-destroying catch and run less than two minutes into the third quarter?

Several players pointed to Marlon Humphrey punching a fumble loose midway through that quarter as the moment when they emerged from their torpor.

Others pointed to oft-ignored Tylan Wallace breaking a tackle and tap dancing 84 yards down the sideline to pull them within a point early in the fourth quarter.

Others said they simply never feel out of a game with Lamar Jackson leading an offense that revs hotter than any in the NFL. “Most complete offense I’ve ever been around in my time in the league,” left tackle Ronnie Stanley said.

That offense hit a rare lull in the first half as Cincinnati hit Jackson with unexpectedly conservative defensive looks. He has carved up pressure so relentlessly that they tried another way. It worked.

“We were kind of sleeping that whole first half,” the reigning NFL Most Valuable Player acknowledged.

The Ravens roared back with 287 yards and 28 points after halftime, but that only scratches the surface of the wiled spectacle we witnessed Thursday night at M&T Bank Stadium.

What about Chase answering Jackson’s fusillade with 212 receiving yards and three touchdowns in the second half, even as the Ravens knew Joe Burrow would be looking for No. 1 on all the biggest downs?

What about Justin Tucker hooking an extra point that could have tied the game at 21? Who imagined that 10 weeks into this season, some Ravens fans would be calling for a succession plan to replace the greatest kicker of all time?

What about that fourth down on Cincinnati’s final drive, when the Ravens thought they had stopped wide receiver Andrei Iosivas an inch short and the officials ruled otherwise?

What about that drive coming down to a 2-point attempt on which Burrow inexplicably looked away from Chase and the officials declined to call roughing after Travis Jones’ paw caught the Cincinnati quarterback in the face?

What about the whole thing coming down to an onside kick — the Achilles heel for 2024 Ravens special teams?

Coach John Harbaugh said his players showed “the hearts of lions in a game like that.” Even more so considering that five weeks earlier in Cincinnati, they came back from three 10-point deficits to win in overtime. Did we learn anything new from a wildly entertaining game that moved the Ravens to 7-3 and kept them pointed toward the playoffs?

We already knew their offense could not be kept down for 60 minutes. We already knew they were wildly vulnerable to elite quarterbacks and wide receivers. We already knew they were equal parts likely to come back and likely to flirt with blowing a lead. We already knew Jackson was questing hard for another MVP.

The Ravens churn drama, for the right reasons and the wrong ones.

The Ravens’ inability to cover No. 1 receivers could be their undoing: With the Baltimore defense “protecting” a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter, Chase sprinted straight upfield. Cornerback Brandon Stephens did little to slow his momentum. Safety Marcus Williams seemed to have his eyes fixed elsewhere and offered no deep support.

Chase had to be priority No. 1, the human embodiment of a skull and crossbones, but there he went, blazing free to catch a 70-yard touchdown pass that tied tied the game. He even rubbed it in, stopping short of the goal line and dancing along it for several seconds to emphasize just how far he was from being covered.

The Ravens can’t cover No. 1 wide receivers, folks. It’s what the numbers say, and it’s what we saw with our own eyes Thursday night as Chase made a mockery of their once-proud defense. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, no way to pretend it isn’t a problem that could cost them dearly come the playoffs.

Humphrey seemed notably disturbed in the postgame locker room, referring to the defense as the team’s little brothers and reiterating that the players simply aren’t translating the good coaching they receive during the work into appropriate game day action.

“We’ve lost that standard,” he said. “What is missing there from how we’re practicing to how we’re playing in the game? It’s become clear that it’s something. I think each guy has got to look at themselves in the mirror and figure out, ‘Why are you not playing how you practice something?’”

With the Bengals’ No. 2 wide receiver, Tee Higgins, sidelined by a quadriceps injury, there was really only one Cincinnati playmaker who could devastate the Ravens. And devastate them Chase did, catching 11 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns. Add that to his bounty from five weeks earlier, and he’s up to 21 catches for 457 yards and five touchdowns against Baltimore in 2024. That’s a good 17-game season for plenty of NFL wide receivers. This from a guy the Ravens largely shut down in 2023.

They seemed at a loss for explanations as they sorted through the wreckage. They could only say that fixing a broken pass defense has to be a defining mission over their next eight games.

“I mean, I do give [Ja’Marr Chase] credit. He’s a great player,” Harbaugh said. “I was looking for him after the game and couldn’t find him. Maybe that was appropriate. There you go. I couldn’t find him either. But we doubled him a bunch of times. Those plays we didn’t, we were in zone coverage there. He should have been covered. Those plays shouldn’t have happened. There’s no doubt about it. Those are not tough plays. Those are basic routes that should be covered in the coverages that we’re in, so that’s not the standard.”

The Ravens cannot survive for long without Kyle Hamilton: M&T Bank Stadium fell deathly silent after Hamilton collapsed to the field, untouched and unable to rise on his own power.

Such an awkward injury invites fears that a great player’s season might be over, that his brilliant career might be altered. Hamilton mercifully escaped that fate. Harbaugh said after the game that Hamilton’s ankle injury isn’t serious, though it wasn’t yet clear how much time he might miss.

Even on a night when they pulled out a nutty win, the Ravens could not have received better news.

Baltimore fans know there are only a few players without whom the Ravens are fundamentally diminished. Jackson is No. 1 on that list. Hamilton is probably No. 2.

As skeptic might note that the Ravens came in 32nd in pass defense with the sport’s most versatile safety.

True enough, but he’s more than their best option to cover tight ends and their most effective blitzer. He’s often their best run defender. Before he turned his ankle Thursday, Hamilton made four tackles, batted down two passes and earned the best coverage grade in the secondary. In other words, he was the best player on the defense, as he is almost every week.

On the first play of the second half, with Hamilton nowhere to be seen, Chase slashed across the middle of the field to catch Burrow’s dart and ran away from four defenders for a 67-yard touchdown. Would the Pro Bowl safety have stopped it? Not necessarily. Chase is a great player who did the same thing to the Ravens with Hamilton on the field in Cincinnati. But the middle of the Baltimore secondary resembled the innards of a soft-boiled egg without No. 14 swooping to the ball.

This time, the Ravens’ pass rush did not let them down: For all the self-recrimination expressed by Humphrey and others, the Ravens’ defense actually kept them in the game while their offense inexplicably sputtered for the first 30 minutes. They hit Burrow 13 times, and Nnamdi Madubuike sacked him thrice (Jackson, by contrast took one quarterback hit and no sacks).

After a week of hearing that they couldn’t get to the quarterback and of fans bemoaning general manager Eric DeCosta’s inability to land a pass rusher at the trade deadline, they at least made Burrow suffer for his 428 yards and four touchdowns.

The Ravens gave us a pu pu platter of defensive disfunction at the end of the Bengals’ opening scoring drive. There was the blown challenge from Harbaugh that would have been worth all of 2 yards even if he had won it.

There was the personnel confusion that forced the Ravens to waste another timeout. And to top it off, cornerback Stephens wiped out a seeming fourth-and-goal stop with defensive holding.

Cincinnati faced two previous third downs on the drive. In each case, Burrow casually stepped away from pressure and found receivers open in the middle of Baltimore’s secondary for gains of 26 and 19 yards, respectively.

It all felt like the blueprint for a Cincinnati offensive bonanza to follow up Burrow’s five-touchdown performance against the Ravens five weeks earlier.

Not so, at least not until the second half.

The final numbers might not show it, but the Ravens played one of their best defensive halves of the season, taking advantage of Cincinnati’s mobility-challenged left tackle, Cody Ford, who filled in for injured starter Orlando Brown Jr.

They pressured Burrow 20 times in the first half, according to Pro Football Focus’ in-game charting, and held the Bengals to 4.6 yards per play, a yard below their season average.

Of particular import was Madubuike’s big game. The Bengals seem to tap his inner fire more than any other opponent. He bellowed encouragement to teammates from pregame warmups right on through to that final stand. He backed it up by playing like the guy who earned a $98 million contract with his swarming rushes last season.

“I believe I’m a big pulse on the defensive line. I’m a leader on the defensive line, and it starts with me and just my attitude and my focus,” he said. “I feel like guys feed off of me, and I take the initiative just to stay focused and [have] high energy just to get back there. It’s one thing to say it and it’s one thing to do it, so I try to do both and just encourage my teammates to do it as well.”

The Ravens have so much to fix on their defense, but if they have that Madubuike for the next seven games, there’s one box checked off.

Mark Andrews’ football life came full circle: The last time the Ravens hosted the Bengals in Baltimore — last November no less — Andrews’ career took an awful turn as a hip-drop tackle wrecked his ankle and sent him hobbling into uncertainty. He took every possible step, including hours spent in a hyperbaric chamber borrowed from his girlfriend’s family, to recover in time for the AFC championship game. But there was no way for him to regain his full powers without an offseason of rehabilitation.

Andrews began this season with more uncertainty in the form of a terrifying car accident and five games without a touchdown catch. Skeptics wondered if he’d ever again become the force of nature he was before that hit against the Bengals.

So it had to feel juicy sweet for him to catch six of the seven balls thrown his way Thursday, including an essential 18-yard touchdown off what Jackson described as a “crazy” improvisatory route. “Playground ball,” the quarterback and tight end have always called it, speaking to the wavelength only they share on such plays.

“I’m just thankful,” Andrews said of returning to such a point. He has five touchdown catches in his past five games.

And then it was time for Cincinnati’s final onside kick, a potential bugaboo given the Ravens’ failure to recover two of them earlier in the season.

Andrews stood on the front line of their “hands” team as Evan McPherson lined up his kick. Based on the formation, he knew the ball was likely to skitter his way.

Did he want that responsibility? He grinned broadly when asked after the game.

“I guess I’m the guy to get it,” he recalled thinking. “Luckily, it was a pretty easy one.”

His hands were true. The game was over. He was back where he belonged.