However you measured it Sunday — by the final scoreboard, the assessment of the team’s star receiver or, at times, even the quarterback’s very own words — there was little difference between Andy Dalton, the overly nice guy that Marvin Lewis unflatteringly dubbed him and his teammates a few weeks ago and the “jerk” the Cincinnati Bengals coach wanted his quarterback to be against the Denver Broncos.

Actually, Lewis didn’t say his affable second-year quarterback needed to be more of a jerk in order to take his faltering teammates to task and hold them accountable, but for the sake of a family newspaper we’ll use that term. The word the coach actually used rhymes with tick and pick.

If you’re a hunting dog you don’t want to be bit by the former. If you’re a quarterback you don’t want to victimized by the latter.

Either way they’re problems and right now the Bengals have been bit by plenty of them.

In falling to Denver, 31-23, Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati has now lost four games in a row. The season that began with such promise is beginning to look like so many of the stinkers of years past.

This is the fourth time in the past six years, the Bengals have had four-game losing streaks and the first three times, they went 4-12 , 4-11-1 and 7-9.

This team — as young as it is — was supposed to be better with several talented players on both sides of the ball. But the shortfall has now become “a deep hole ,” as Lewis would call it after the game. So the coach seems to be trying every trick he knows to jump start this bunch before another season is completely lost.

It’s close to that already. With the Super Bowl champion New York Giants coming in next Sunday — and Pittsburgh and Baltimore coming later — the Bengals, to quote Lewis again, “have a hard road to go.” They are 2-5 in the AFC — 3-5 overall — and the playoffs aren’t even in the conversation unless they finish the schedule at least 6-2.

Desperate to awaken his slumping team, Lewis began last week saying Dalton needed to be more consistent in games. Then two days later he upped the ante when he called out the quarterback and middle linebacker Rey Maualuga, saying both had to be more of a jerk with their teammates.

“I’m looking for Andy to take the next step in being a leader,” Lewis said. He said both players need to “grab this football team by the back of its neck” and added that both need to “step out of their skin and say ‘Let’s go.’ ”

This season Dalton — who with another pick Sunday now has thrown an interception in all eight games — hasn’t always looked comfortable. He’s often thrown the ball early and into coverage and he’s seemed reluctant to freelance.

Sunday he completed 26-of-42 passes for 299 yards, a touchdown pass to Green and a crucial interception in the fourth quarter.

The few times he went off script, he did pull off some big passing plays. But the Bengals were victimized by several costly penalties and another special teams breakdown that Denver’s Trindon Holliday turned into a 105 yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half.

Dalton may not have been able lift this team by the scruff of its neck, but he did have some words with receiver Brandon Tate — who ran a lackadaisical route in the first quarter that ended up in a deflected pass.

And when he bounced a pass to a wide-open Brian Leonard as the Bengals were trying to mount a late-game comeback, Dalton dropped to his knees and pounded the ground.

But stepping out of his skin doesn’t come that naturally.

“One thing about Andy, he’s not going to let his emotions show,” Green said. “I felt he was more aggressive in practice and when guys ran the wrong route he got up in their face. But no, it’s not really his nature. But to be the leader of the offense, sometimes you have to do it.”

Lewis said he thought Dalton did “a pretty good today. He had some unscripted plays. He ran for a first down, he got the crosser when he scrambled… Those are things he just needs to keep doing.”

Asked afterward if, during the game, had fitted himself with that “jerk” mantle that Lewis suggested, Dalton low-keyed the discussion.

“I’m just being myself,” he said. “I’m being me out there. On game days I’ve got a fire. I’ve got a passion. I’m a competitor and want to win every single time I’m out there. I think it shows in the way I am on the sideline and in the huddle and things like that.”

As for the “too nice” tag, he just shook his head: “You don’t want your coach to say something like that. You want him to be satisfied with the way you do things. And I don’t think we’re going to be having that issue any more. I think we got it handled.”

And yet the final scoreboard says otherwise.