Paul Daugherty

Cincinnati-Unknown

“I knew it was going to be a hard season," Marvin Lewis said.

What?

“The schedule, the guys we allowed to move on,” he said. “The question of whether their replacements would be ready. It was going to be a grind.”

Lewis was prophetic in a way no one has liked. We chatted at length last week. I said, “Pretend you’re at a restaurant bar where no one knows you. I’m sitting on the next stool. I say, ‘What has happened to the Cincinnati Bengals this year?’ ”

Lewis said, “We haven’t made enough plays. We haven’t closed out a game, we haven’t scored in the fourth quarter. That’s what it comes down to. I’ve had it posted five weeks in a row: Win The Fourth Quarter. That’s what disappoints me. That’s what disappoints everyone.”

That’s been the illness. The symptoms?

The replacements didn’t play in August. Cedric Ogbuehi. Jake Fisher. Darqueze Dennard, William Jackson III, Tyler Eifert and Brandon LaFell. They were hurt while training camp was taking place. Some returned and played well. Some returned and did not. Jackson III didn’t return at all.

Lewis talked of the need to grind and pound the rock. Familiar themes. Last year, they stuck. This year?

“We didn’t reach enough (players) early on,” he said.

We?

The coaches, Lewis said. “That’s our job.” There was the need to move past last year’s playoff loss. Lewis hosted a dinner last April. Vontaze Burfict was there. So were Adam Jones and Jeremy Hill and a number of team leaders. A time to clear the air, once and for all. “Bare their conscience,” as Lewis put it.

Did it work?

“We (still) let (the Steelers) get to us. Baltimore we don’t let under our skin,” said Lewis.

He mentioned a midseason speech to the defense, after a loss to the New York Giants. He talked about the need for selflessness and self motivation. He told the players that day, “I coached what some said was the best defense in the history of the NFL,” the 2000 Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens. “They were together, they were not selfish. They played and practiced their butts off. That’s how you guys used to be. You lost that.”

He noted that players sometimes assume success. He suggested that some players don’t realize their personal victories are tied tightly to the overall success of the team. “That’s why we brought Wallace Gilberry back,” as a reminder, Lewis said.

It has worked. The defense has played well since New York. But probably too late to save the season. Still, Lewis said, “We don’t have a dominant guy on defense.’’ He said the defense lacks the leadership provided in previous years by Reggie Nelson and Leon Hall. “We haven’t taken the bull by the horns,’’ in that regard, said Lewis.

Lewis kept Vontaze Burfict out of August games because he wanted the defense to establish an identity without the linebacker, who would be suspended the first three regular-season games. That didn’t happen.

Offensively, “the quarterback gets hit too much. We win the Baltimore game if (Ravens defenders) aren’t around him so much,” Lewis said the offense misses the downfield speed of Marvin Jones.

Part of the lack of big plays is a lack of confidence, Lewis believes. Part of it is breakdowns in concentration. Part of it is coaches, himself included, unable to break through to players.

“We’re taking turns doing dumb things. We’re having these mental, Ripley’s Believe it or Not plays,” Lewis said. “As coaches, it’s always our responsibility to get them to do it the way we want it done. Once it leaves the sideline, it’s on them.”

Lewis thinks this season will be a lesson for any player previously taking winning for granted. “I cringe and laugh when (free agents) say they want to play for the Bengals, because (the Bengals) are a Super Bowl contender. We’re only a Super Bowl contender because you come here and play your butt off.”

He said he wants Cedric Ogbuehi to play with more confidence. He wants Carlos Dunlap to be great all the time. “He can dominate every play, if he wants to,” Lewis said. He wants someone to grab the leadership baton on defense. He wants his team to run the ball better and more often.

“Run the ball, control the line. That’s what we have to get back to,” Lewis said. “You can throw the football all over the place. But if you want to win, you have to do those other two things. Denver proved it. A mediocre team that played great defense, but could run the ball when they needed to run it.”

Lewis likes this group of players. “Sixty-three guys you’d take to your house for dinner,” he called them. He knows everyone has fallen short, for all the reasons he mentioned. Win as a team. Lose likewise.

He said he will be back next year, if asked. “Coaches don’t fear being replaced,” said Lewis. He lamented the length of the offseason: “Unless the teams in front of us fall on their faces, we have to wait so long to get back to it (next year), and then it seems like (the season) just goes,” too quickly. “like it’s Saturday night all the time.”

I asked Lewis for one final thought for the fan on the next barstool. Lewis’ team has not negotiated the hump of high expectations. It has not made big plays in big moments. It has not, in his interpretation, worked as one, or as diligently as it might have.

“Sum it up for me in a sentence,’’ I asked.

“We didn’t create enough plays to get over that hump,’’ said Lewis.