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He was briefly reliving the disappointment he first felt last week when on two occasions he committed a receiver's greatest sin by dropping passes. The first of them was perhaps the most unforgivable, coming when there wasn't a defender within five yards of him. It was the most open he would be all night.

"I hate it," Green said. "It's tough to watch, but that's something I've got to work on."

He isn't alone. All this week, the message in the receivers' meeting rooms has gone as follows: See the ball, catch the ball, then run with the ball.

Against the Dolphins last week, the Bengals had their most drops of the Andy Dalton quarterbacking era when they combined to watch five balls slip out their hands and hit the turf. In addition to Green's two, tight end Jermaine Gresham lost one, and receivers Andrew Hawkins and Mohamed Sanu couldn't hold on to another two. Three of the Bengals' drops came on consecutive plays that covered a pair of drives.

"Drops happen," Green told Harvey, "but we got to continue to get better and we can't let that happen in key moments of the game."

According to Harvey, the five drops were the most for the Bengals in a game since 2007.

"You've got to take care of the advantages," receiver Marvin Jones said. "When everything comes our way, we catch it. That's what we're supposed to do; that's our job. If we don't do that, then you see what happens. We have to keep taking care of the football and catching the football and making the plays we know we can make."

Each of the drops clouded what was otherwise an OK night for the Bengals' passing game.

Aside from his three interceptions, Dalton still threw for 338 yards. In offensive coordinator Jay Gruden's eyes, he actually looked quite strong overall, and had a better outing than some might want to give him credit for having. With respect to the balls the Bengals did catch, Green walked away with 11 receptions on 128 yards. Sanu, fighting through injury, had six catches. Jones and running back Giovani Bernard had four. Gresham and fellow tight end Tyler Eifert had three each, and Hawkins had one.

Green felt his problem was the problem the others had. He was too eager to make a play.

"Coming into this year, the whole thing I was thinking about was getting more yards after the catch," he said. "I've got to concentrate more when I'm wide open. It's easy to make the hard catch look easy. The easy ones are the ones I just try to take my head out and run [before] I catch it. I can't do that."

I suspect he'll pick up the pace and play with a bit more focus going forward.

With a defense now decimated by injury, the Bengals' offensive players feel a little added pressure this week as they head to Baltimore for a key division contest against the Ravens.

"Yeah, we've got to do a little bit more," Green said. "They had our back for a couple of games now and we've got to step it up a little bit."

Although drops (he's had five altogether so far) have been issues for Green at times this year, he still enters the weekend leading the league in receiving yards with 862. That's 21 more yards than Detroit's Calvin Johnson, who has appeared in two fewer games than Green because of an injury and also because of having to go through the Lions' bye week.