Sleepwalking Ravens need Ray Lewis to sound alarm

I just listened to an old Vince Lombardi speech on the Internet.

Lombardi is addressing the Green Bay Packers in the locker room moments before they take the field against the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II.

Gradually he works himself into a lather.

Then he builds to the red-meat conclusion.

"You gotta go out there like a bunch of tigers!" he shouts. "Just hit, just run, just block and just tackle! ... There's nothing out there you haven't faced a number of times! Right?"

"Right!" roar the Packers.

You can hear how fired up they are. I bet they tore the locker room door off its hinges to get at the Raiders.

And they destroyed them, 33-14.

Which makes you wonder: Could coach John Harbaugh use that speech on the Ravens?

I say that because it's clear that something has to be done to motivate this team.

Something has to be done to get this team to play hard from the opening kickoff, which it sure didn't do in Sunday's 17-7 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals and in several earlier losses, too.

Maybe it's harder to motivate today's NFL players - especially the millionaire superstars - than it was in Lombardi's day.

But Harbaugh had better find a way to do it if his team is going to make the playoffs, something that looks 50-50 at best right now.

Here's the question that has dominated the local sports talk shows and blogs lately: How could the Ravens come out so flat against the Bengals after that uplifting 30-7 win over the Denver Broncos a week earlier?

But when Harbaugh met the news media Monday, you could tell he had no answer.

And that's the scary part of all this.

Oh, sure, he dusted off the old coach's tactic of blaming himself for not having his players ready to play.

"First of all, it starts with me," he said. "It's my job to give our guys every opportunity to play as well as they can play. And I need to find a way to do my job better."

But that's just smoke and mirrors.

Harbaugh wasn't out there sleepwalking with the defense, which let the Bengals score the first three times they had the ball.