Thank you Coach Lewis for turning the franchise around. Thank you for the winning years, and resurrection of hope for the fans.

You are a big part of Bengal history and your contributions to stabilizing a directionless organization will never be denied.

In time, the magnitude of your accomplishments, will be appreciated.

Best of luck in whatever you choose to do!!!

There were several posts about Marvin's presser commenting on the class he exhibited..
Something that struck me is that at no point has he ever tried to scapegoat anyone else for his failures to deliver on a championship. He didn't badmouth anyone, not even ownership, no players, not even the press.
We've seen other coaches do just that, but I don't recall Marvin ever trying to place blame on anyone else. For that he deserves a lot of credit. 
You don't have to like Marvin as a coach, but the thing you really cannot say is that he ever passed the buck to blame anyone else for whatever has transpired.

In the immortal words of Ariana Grande:

Thank u, next.

I think how people view Marvin directly correlates to how old they are and how long they have been fans. I have been a Bengals fan since day 1. I wanted Marvin gone as much as anyone, as I think he peaked, and was heading downhill. But, I have no ill feeling towards the man and wish him well. Everyone is saying 7 trips to the playoffs, and no wins. Yeah, that's pretty bad I guess. But I remember when 2 wins in a season was a lot to hope for. Marvin made this a competitive football team, that on any given day can play and beat any other team in the league. He just didn't seem to be able to get them up for the big game. As a person, I think he is a fine human being, and probably is viewed as a father by a lot of players who came here never having had fathers. They are better men because of him, the team is a better team because of him. Thanks for that, Marvin. Enjoy whatever comes next for you....

He got paid to make excuses. Basically, he was the COO of a company that took the stock from $.10 to $15.00 . The Brown Family got a stadium out of it and filled their coffers. Now that the Bengals are the new Browns they make a change. If you were buying stock and did your homework, would you buy into this company? It starts at the top and the Brown's are still in charge. Expect more of the same for the foreseeable future.
Someone on this board actually said Andy Dalton played well until he got hurt. Welcome back Cincinnati New Browns fans.
They roped you back in when the stock dropped to $1.50. and most of you will go down with the ship.

(01-01-2019, 10:33 AM)bamseventy1 Wrote: He got paid to make excuses. Basically, he was the COO of a company that took the stock from $.10 to $15.00 . The Brown Family got a stadium out of it and filled their coffers. Now that the Bengals are the new Browns they make a change. If you were buying stock and did your homework, would you buy into this company? It starts at the top and the Brown's are still in charge. Expect more of the same for the foreseeable future.
Someone on this board actually said Andy Dalton played well until he got hurt. Welcome back Cincinnati New Browns fans.  
They roped you back in when the stock dropped to $1.50. and most of you will go down with the ship.

Love it when some new fool signs up just to tell us what idiots we are.  Welcome aboard, jackass.

(12-31-2018, 06:10 PM)kevin Wrote: Shula, Colslett, Lebeau combined for zero play-offs.  So Coach Lewis 7 Play-Off Seasons was an improvement. Coach Gregg had been only Bengals Coach to have 2 straight Play-Off Seasons. Coach Lewis made it 5 in a row and 6 in 7 years.  I also feel after 3 losing seasons it is time for Coach Lewis to go.  Had he stayed, he is talking retiring soon anyway.  Time to change.  Still, I give credit to Coach Lewis winning more than Shula, Coslett, Lebeau and I'll throw in Tiger Johnson and Homer Rice.   New Years Eve, so out with the old, in with the new, but hoping not in with the hue.

Good post. Marvin also kind of proved that the crazy Bengals philosophy is viable. You don't need to have 17 vice presidents of football size, shape, seams, operations, inflation etc. to be competitive in the NFL.

You need to be able to assess, assemble, and motivate talented players , and then teach the game and manage it. Marvin is exceptional in many of those areas, but not all of them. He also seems to impress most who meet him as a high character person. There is something to be said for a team running a clean house and its fans not having to worry about scandals and drama around the owner and coaches (and even most of our players now) and also being in the playoff hunt with some frequency.

So the team he coached is now a laughing stock because they haven't won a playoff game under his tenure. But under Marvin's tenure they made the playoffs, had marquee players some of whom shined here and some of whom shined when they moved on to other teams, had coaches whose careers advanced, etc. Laughinstock who gets bounced in 1st round of playoffs is a long way from laughingstock who is perennially about 4-12. 

It's time for the next chapter. In the Bengals book so far the best chapter was the Sam Wyche era. I wish that chapter had been longer. The next best was arguably the Marvin Lewis era, and likely it went on a little too long. 

Interested to see what will be written on the next pages and by whom...

Good post Kevin. Anybody that watched/lived thru the 90's has to have some kind of appreciation for what Marvin did for this franchise. If you don't you weren't paying much attention. That being said everybody including him knew his time had come to an end. He & and his foundation did great things for our community & the next guy will have big shoes o fill in that aspect. I wish him nothing but luck & am anxious to get started on this new era.

For anyone that was around in the 90s, you have to give ALL the credit to Marvin for this team even being comptetive.

Its a miracle what he did in terms of getting the team to change some of their practices and get them to the playoffs. Anyone who isn't absolutely amazed at what he did should be ashamed.

That being said, it was time for him to move on. Things just got stale. My only hope is that the team continues to make progress on joining the NFL in terms of structure and operations (a huge thing to ask with Mike Brown in place.)

Marvins downfall was his group of not ready for prime time players and inability to adjust to what other teams were doing. In all the playoff games they were competitive until the wheels came off in the second half. Championship teams have players who step up in critical moments. Sadly Marvin nor his players stepped up when the lights were brightest. Sadly that will be his legacy but he definitely earned it.

(01-01-2019, 11:18 AM)Hammerstripes Wrote: For anyone that was around in the 90s, you have to give ALL the credit to Marvin for this team even being comptetive.

Its a miracle what he did in terms of getting the team to change some of their practices and get them to the playoffs. Anyone who isn't absolutely amazed at what he did should be ashamed.

That being said, it was time for him to move on. Things just got stale. My only hope is that the team continues to make progress on joining the NFL in terms of structure and operations (a huge thing to ask with Mike Brown in place.)

The Cardinals and Jets are in a similar position to Cincinnati before Marvin Lewis came here. I would like to see those teams interview Marvin.

Marv was a good not great HC with some holes in his game. Did a great job getting us out of the nightmare. To be fair, caught a couple of bad breaks, esp 2005. I have no ill will towards the man. Way past time to move on, though.

I would not take his final presser and congratulate him on it. In MOST of his post game pressers for all of 16 years he was arrogant and aloof and talked in stupid circles.

It cracks me up when people scoff at a winning record in the NFL.

"Bah! EVERY team has a winning record in the NFL. That is nothing special."

(12-31-2018, 06:37 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: You are essentially giving him a participation trophy with this thread.

Right, because every NFL team makes the playoffs every year.

Marvin's overall record is slightly above average. But when you consider the handicap of working under Mike Browns rules that is better than it appears.

For example. If Marvin had been fired after the '10 season and a new coach came in and took a team that was considered the worst in the league to the playoffs 5 staright years fans would have loved him.

Marvin should have been gone after last season. Even if his message as a coach was not that bad it had become stale around here.

(01-01-2019, 10:33 AM)bamseventy1 Wrote: He got paid to make excuses. Basically, he was the COO of a company that took the stock from $.10 to $15.00 . The Brown Family got a stadium out of it and filled their coffers. Now that the Bengals are the new Browns they make a change. If you were buying stock and did your homework, would you buy into this company? It starts at the top and the Brown's are still in charge. Expect more of the same for the foreseeable future.
Someone on this board actually said Andy Dalton played well until he got hurt. Welcome back Cincinnati New Browns fans.  
They roped you back in when the stock dropped to $1.50. and most of you will go down with the ship.

(01-01-2019, 10:43 AM)McC Wrote: Love it when some new fool signs up just to tell us what idiots we are.  Welcome aboard, jackass.

Especially when said idiot says things like Mike Brown got a stadium out of a Marvin, despite the stadium opening 3 years prior to Marvin's arrival to the team...

Marvin deserves a ton of credit for bringing this franchise out of the dark ages and turning them into a contender. That was no easy task, especially given how badly Mike had screwed things up for 12 years before he got here. 

I also give him a lot credit for the '11 to '15 run. Making the playoffs 5 straight years is very difficult and his teams were able to do that. That same run also highlighted many of Marvin's shortcomings as well. He showed he could be a good coach, but 'good' proved to be his ceiling. He just wasn't a big stage type of coach.

IMO, he should have never been brought back after the embarrassing playoff meltdown in the Steeler playoff game. Sticking around to have 3 straight losing seasons just tarnished his image even more with the fan base. 

(01-01-2019, 12:14 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: The Cardinals and Jets are in a similar position to Cincinnati before Marvin Lewis came here.  I would like to see those teams interview Marvin.

They shouldn't, and won't, for a reason that has absolutely nothing to do with coaching ability.

They shouldn't do it because Marvin is pretty close to the retirement line.

Both of the programs you mentioned should be looking for young coaches who would spend the majority of their lengthy career's alongside the young franchise QBs the teams have in place; not someone who would realistically retire before the QB's rookie contract expires.

Marvin is more suited at his age to go to a situation like GB with an aging veteran leader where they retire together in a few seasons.

(01-01-2019, 10:43 AM)McC Wrote: Love it when some new fool signs up just to tell us what idiots we are.  Welcome aboard, jackass.

Yep.  He calls us stupid but he thinks that PBS was built while Marvin was coach.