A weekly look at what the Bengals must fix:

Oh, how the Cincinnati Bengals long for the days earlier this season when their week-to-week fixes were considerably minor. That's not the case after Sunday's disaster at Indianapolis. Following their 27-0 loss to the Colts, there are a host of issues they have to work through going into this Sunday's game at Paul Brown Stadium against the Baltimore Ravens.

With help from offensive coordinator Hue Jackson, here is a list of items the offense has to tweak and change and adjust within the next five days. For the purposes of this post, we aren't going to focus on any of those. One other simple, seemingly easy fix the Bengals can make this week is to be better offensively on first down. By getting off to a good start at the beginning of drives, a team can set itself up for a more favorable outcome by the end of it.

Third downs were the bane of the Bengals' existence Sunday, as they converted just one of their 13 tries. The main reason they had such difficulty with those conversions was because 10 of the 13 third downs came on third-and-7 or longer scenarios. When a team has that far to go to get a first down, it typically doesn't bode well for their chances of converting. How were the Bengals consistently getting stuck in that position? Because on six of the 14 drives they had in the game, they either didn't gain a yard or went backward on first down. Such poor starts to drives hurt them when it was time to convert on third down.

Here's another reason the Bengals need shorter third downs. This season, they have converted 62 percent of their third downs with 4 or fewer yards to go, and haven't allowed a sack or turnover in those scenarios. They have converted just 30 percent of their third downs with 5 or more yards to go, allowing three sacks and throwing two interceptions.

There are fixes the Bengals need to make on defense, too, but they could help their defense by keeping it off the field. They can do that by having bigger gains on first down, making it easier to convert shorter third downs.