What does Marvin Lewis want? Who knows? Maybe even he doesn’t know yet.
It appears, as Ian Rapoport of NFL Media first reported, that Lewis won’t be coaching the Bengals next season. He told Rapoport he would consider front-office jobs. But when asked Monday whether he wants to be back in Cincinnati next year, Lewis said, “I want to coach football.”
Which is to say he avoided the question, prompting a repeat of it: Do you want to coach in Cincinnati in 2018?
“Sure,” Lewis said.
That should become the title of the Bengals’ 2017 highlight film: Sure.
Lewis is in his 15th season with the Bengals, a longer run than most coaches, especially those without a playoff win. Under Lewis, Cincinnati has seven postseason appearances. The franchise has only 14 playoff appearances since its birth in 1968. But it hasn’t won a playoff game since 1990, the sixth-longest drought in NFL history.
So maybe it’s time for both sides to move on.