The memories of last weekend won't go away easily. Those long runs by the New York Giants running backs are lodged in the heads of the Ravens like a nagging headache.
And they won't go away until Sunday, when the Ravens play the Philadelphia Eagles at M&T Bank Stadium.
"What do I think of what happened last week? It sucks," Ravens defensive tackle Justin Bannan said. "Of course, we take it personally. Some things that happened were very uncharacteristic of our defense. They had a couple of big runs. We've got to get those corrected. We needed to fix some things."
There is still a lot of hurt pride and crushed egos in the Ravens' locker room after the 30-10, humbling loss to New York in which the Ravens surrendered 207 rushing yards.
Since the franchise's Super Bowl win in January 2001, the Ravens have prided themselves in having one of the NFL's best defenses. Nobody ran on the Ravens. Nobody.
Until Sunday. Brandon Jacobs ran for 70 yards in the first quarter. Ahmad Bradshaw had 96 for the game.
Ouch.
"No, no, that is not supposed to happen here. I think that has happened like one time since I've been here," said Haloti Ngata, the Ravens' third-year defensive tackle. "After the game, there were a lot of upset people. We look forward to playing again Sunday. We want to make sure that never happens again."
But what exactly happened?
According to Bannan and Ngata, the Ravens became undisciplined. Instead of carrying out their usual assignments, they tried to do other things. In other words, outside linebackers and ends who were supposed to contain crashed and allowed cutback runs.
While in pursuit, some players took poor angles and got out of their lanes, which allowed for more open seams.
So, did the Ravens get caught up in the hype of playing the defending Super Bowl champions and the team with the NFL's No. 1 rushing offense?
"We just didn't do our jobs. We didn't come out and play our defenses like we usually play them," Bannan said.
Ngata said: "You have to give their running backs some credit. We missed a lot of tackles, and we didn't wrap up. They did a good job of running through our arm tackles."
One thing the Ravens won't admit is that they got blown off the ball by a physical Giants offensive line. Oh, no. There is way too much pride on the Ravens for that to happen.
