I Give Coach Lewis Credit For 7 Play-Off Seasons.

[jfkbengals]

(01-01-2019, 02:16 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: 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. 

With the exception of the bold, I think you nailed it with this post.

My disagreement to the bolded statement lies in the front office did nothing to help out. 

I think the mind set was Marvin is a great coach, and therefore can do it with lesser talent.

Marvin gets a good young team into position to make a run at the whole thing, and they don't retain the talent while adding pieces to get over the top.  Instead the talen is replaced, one by one, with unproven or lesser players.

In my opinion, Marvin would have shown a higher ceiling had he landed with a different franchise.