Marvin Lewis Planning To Leave Bengals After Season

Update:

Following Sunday’s game, Bengals HC Marvin Lewis said that the reports of him planning to leave the team after the season are not accurate.

“Nothing’s changed since August,” Lewis said, via NFL.com. “It’s just speculation people keep throwing out there and we’re all wasting time talking about that.”

“I have not made any decision about anything, as I’ve told you how many times.”

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Adam Schefter of ESPN is reporting that long-time Bengals HC Marvin Lewis is planning to leave the organization after the 2017 season and will pursue opportunities elsewhere.

Lewis is currently in the final year of his contract and he had been going year to year with Cincinnati, which left open the possibility of either parting moving in a new direction at some point.

League sources have told Schefter that it’s possible Lewis could be on the short list for a few teams this offseason as a head-coaching candidate.

However, if there ends up not being a head-coaching opportunity, Schefter says that Lewis is interested in joining another team’s front office or becoming a coaching adviser for a former Bengals assistant coach who has gone on to become a head coach, such as Mike Zimmer in Minnesota.

This situation extends beyond Lewis, as Schefter reports that most, if not all, of the Bengals’ assistant coaches have their contracts up after the season. The Bengals have reportedly declined to give contract extensions to their assistant coaches and some of them are unhappy with the way they have been treated financially.

Lewis, 59, was hired as the Bengals’ head coach back in 2003 and has spent 14 seasons with the team. The expectations were for the Bengals to continue their string of playoff appearances but they’ve already clinched a losing season for the first time since 2010.

In total, the Bengals are 123-111-3 (52.5 percent) under Lewis, which includes seven trips to the postseason but no playoff wins.