Giants' first units play like it's 2009 in loss to Ravens

BALTIMORE - The Giants' regular season opens two weeks from Sunday. In Tom Coughlin's eyes, how far is the team from being ready?

"We're a ways," he said Saturday night after a glum 24-10 loss to the Ravens in the all-important third preseason game. "One solid week of practice with everybody practicing? Maybe. But that's not going to happen."

No, it's not. The Giants are dealing with a series of nagging injuries, as all NFL teams are at this point. But Coughlin seemed to think that the loss had less to do with physical health than emotional fire.

"Some people played well, played hard," he said. "We just didn't have enough. I was looking for more energy . . . We need to see a lot out of this group within the next 15 days."

The Giants' defense started with a three-and-out that included a sack by Justin Tuck, but on the next series, the Ravens and their no-huddle passing attack stormed down the field for a field goal to make it 3-0.

The Giants appeared poised to answer, as Ahmad Bradshaw ripped off a 12-yard run in which he made four Ravens whiff and Brandon Jacobs turned the corner for a 29-yard run. After Eli Manning hit Hakeem Nicks for a 9-yard pass, the Giants faced second-and-1 from the 15.

Three times they handed the ball to Bradshaw and three times he was unable to gain those three feet for a first down (although Coughlin later said he would have kicked a field goal in a regular-season situation).

The Giants handed it over on downs and barely had enough time to hang their heads before the Ravens drove 85 yards for a 10-0 lead on Joe Flacco's 9-yard slant pass to Anquan Boldin with Courtney Brown in coverage. The Ravens went up 17-0 on their next drive when Flacco hit Todd Heap on a 13-yard slant, this time with Antrel Rolle on Heap's back. On the two brisk drives, Flacco was a combined 12-for-14 for 111 yards.

While the defense was being bled, the best aspect of Manning's game may have been that he wasn't bleeding. In his first game action since having his scalp sliced against the Jets nearly two weeks ago, Manning looked shaky, missing Steve Smith on a deep post after he threw off-balance and not showing much touch on short passes to running backs.

In one half of play, Manning completed 9 of 18 passes for 63 yards and was sacked once. He also threw an interception that was tipped by linebacker Dannell Ellerbe before Smith juggled the ball right into the hands of safety Haruki Nakamura.

Manning's stats for this preseason: 13-for-26, 140 yards. More importantly, with it unlikely that he'll see time Thursday against the Patriots in the preseason closer, the Manning-led offense has been to the end zone only once this season, and that was on a 1-yard drive that took three plays against the Jets.

The Giants' defense showed a pulse late in the second quarter when Corey Webster picked off a pass that bounced off Boldin and returned it 28 yards to the Ravens' 32. But the Giants had only 16 seconds left when they got the ball and had to settle for a 42-yard field goal by Lawrence Tynes to make it 17-3 at halftime.

Flacco, who played into the third quarter, completed 21 of 34 passes for 229 yards.

"They hit us with the no-huddle and kind of hurried the game up," said Tuck, who had two sacks and was one of the few Giants defenders who showed up. "I'm still proud of the way we fought. They made some plays and we made some plays, but there is still a lot of work for us to get this defense where we want it to be."