SEATTLE - It seems like the perfect trap. Coming off an emotional and important victory, the Baltimore Ravens fly across the country to play a 2-6 team coming off a third straight loss.

Problem for the Ravens is it's a situation they've faced and failed at twice this season.

The Ravens said all the right things this week about realizing the importance of today's game at Seattle and how any benefits from their thrilling, last-second 23-20 win over Pittsburgh last week will be completely negated with a West Coast flop.

But the Ravens track record this season says the rare matchup against the struggling Seahawks could mean problems. All they have to do is look back to Week 2 at Tennessee and Week 7 at Jacksonville to see the mistakes.

"We have been riding an emotional high right now. Coming off those big wins, (the media) like to say we have that tendency of a letdown," Baltimore running back Ray Rice said. "I think it's time for us to be able to put the big games behind us and treat every game like it's a big game."

After routing Pittsburgh in its season opener, Baltimore followed up with a flop against the Titans. Five weeks later, the Ravens had another poor performance at Jacksonville a week after an impressive victory over Houston.

They are rare moments in the tenure of John Harbaugh. Since taking over in 2008, the Ravens have three losses against sub-.500 teams. Only one was later than the second week of the regular season, and it came three weeks ago against the Jaguars.

The fact two of those slip ups against losing teams happened this season, and with a home game waiting next week against division co-leader Cincinnati, is what's causing the Ravens concern about this trip.

"It's really easy to get ready for a team like Seattle because they're very talented. I think they've lost a lot of close games and their record is not in any way indicative of the type of football team they are," Harbaugh said. "We've had this experience already and so we know that those records don't mean anything."

Flacco spent most of the week deflecting the praise being heaped his way following his nearly flawless final drive last week against Pittsburgh, which ended with a 26-yard TD pass to rookie Torrey Smith with 8 seconds left that gave the Ravens a season sweep of their AFC North rivals. Flacco took the Ravens 92 yards in the final 2? minutes for the winning score.

"If we just dwell on that then the end is going to be nothing. We're going to look back on it and say, 'Who cares?' because we lost a couple more games," Flacco said. "But as long as we go and do our jobs the rest of the season I think we will be able to look at that as a big win."

A win today would give the Ravens their second 7-2 start in franchise history. The previous time came in 2006 when Baltimore finished 13-3 and had the second-best record in the AFC.

Seattle isn't anywhere near thinking about 7-2 starts and 13-3 records. The Seahawks have dropped their last three, scoring a combined 28 points in losses to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dallas.

The Seahawks are proving talented enough to give better teams fits, as evident by the fact they've been within one score in the fourth quarter in five of their six losses.

But that only highlights Seattle's sometimes maddening inconsistency and seeming to always be playing from behind.

They are headaches that were expected with such a young team. That doesn't make being 2-6 any easier to accept.

"It's just been the performance level of our guys has just not been where it needs to be, you know? We haven't taken care of the football as well as we need to. We haven't gotten the ball as much as we need to," Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. "With our young guys up front, it's been a process. As much as we have no patience about it, we have had to be patient as we watch them develop. It's just been a fight. So, we're getting along here."

If there was a bright spot to take from last week's loss in Dallas, it was the rediscovery of a running game. The Seahawks scraped the no-huddle approach that worked in an upset of the New York Giants last month - and subsequently sputtered - and ran for 162 yards against a Cowboys defense that was fourth in the league against the run. Marshawn Lynch topped 100 yards in the regular season for the first time in nearly three years, but Seattle couldn't overcome three interceptions from Tarvaris Jackson.

Carroll said this week that Seattle's ability to run is of paramount importance to how the rest of the team operates, no matter if it's in a hurry-up offense or not. If they're able to run against Ray Lewis, Haloti Ngata and the rest of the Ravens' defense, it'll be an impressive statement.

"We are in for a fight. What else can you ask for?" Jackson said. "We're a young team, and we're trying to show what we have, and put together a nice team here. So what better challenge is it to have to go against one of the better defenses in the league?"