Over the course of the Cincinnati Bengals’ current three-game losing streak, head coach Marvin Lewis has been talking about being just inches and ticks away and having 10 of 11 guys doing the right thing on most plays.

But Lewis opened his Monday afternoon press conference with a much more blunt assessment.

“I thought we were very, very good at stinking up October and we need to do a cleanse,” Lewis said in wake of the 24-17 loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday night that left the team 0-3 in October after a 3-1 start.

“The best thing going forward is to be better in November and December, which is the key because we kind of erased a lot of the positives that we had in September,” Lewis added. “We found a way to flush them down the toilet in October.”

The Bengals head into their bye week at 3-4 and in third place in the AFC North Division, trailing Baltimore (5-2) by two games and Pittsburgh (3-3) by half a game.

“This (bye) week comes at a good time,” Lewis said. “We have an opportunity to fix a lot of the things that are ailing us right now, and that’s what we’ve got to do. It’s my job to get them moved forward, get us to play better because what we’ve done is not acceptable. It’s not the standard that we want to have.

“Right now with the way things are in the AFC, we have an opportunity to still reach all the goals that are important. And that’s No. 1, winning this division and having the opportunity to go to the playoffs and go from there.”

When asked if winning the division is a realistic goal, considering the team is 0-6 against the Ravens and Steelers the last two seasons and 1-3 in AFC North Division games this year, Lewis didn’t flinch.

“No question,” he said. “We play Pittsburgh and Baltimore, and they play each other. And I think they still have to play Cleveland three times. Right? So there’s a lot of division left to be played, even just based on those games. Lot of football left.

“As we see, everybody is who they are right now,” he continued. “We’re kind of down below where we need to be and we’ve got to just fight back and get up where we need to be in the mix of things.”

Three of the team’s four games in November are at home, and the lone road trip is at 1-5 Kansas City.

Lewis declined to specifically address where changes need to be made, but he did not rule out the possibility of personnel moves.

“I think we’ve got to look at if there is a better opportunity just like we did at wide receiver last week,” he said, referring to activating Ryan Whalen for the first time this season and making rookie Marvin Jones a bigger part of the gameplan, a move that was rendered moot when Jones suffered a knee injury of the Bengals’ first kickoff return.

“You can’t turn your back to (lineup changes),” Lewis said. “That is something you’ve got to look at and see if there is a better way, or somebody different, or at least involve them at some point, somehow. I think that helps keep making your football team better by giving guys opportunity.”

Since the NFL instituted bye weeks in 1990, the Bengals have entered their off week with a losing streak of three games or more six times. And in five of those cases they extended the losing streak after the bye.

The only time it has happened under Lewis was 2007, when the Bengals lost three in a row to fall to 1-3 going into the bye and fell to 1-4 the following week with a 27-20 loss at Kansas City.