Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown explains why Marvin Lewis is back as head coach

Sitting in his office overlooking the Ohio River, Cincinnati Bengals owner and president Mike Brown took time on Friday to speak to The Enquirer in a lengthy interview about the decision to bring back head coach Marvin Lewis for the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

The Enquirer: There was a real sense that this partnership was over following the three-game losing streak to Pittsburgh, Chicago and culminating in Minnesota with an ESPN report that Marvin Lewis had decided to walk away. Did you feel that way at that time?

Mike Brown: “I chose not to make a decision on what we were going to do going forward until all the evidence had been submitted. And that meant playing through the full season and not making a call prematurely. I would say that while we had serious reverses and they were unsettling, to put it mildly, we bounced back at the end of the year. We beat two teams that were in playoff runs. We beat them in games that were important for them where they gave their best shot and I was impressed how we rebounded. That played into what was in my mind when I had to make a final call.”

Enquirer: So the season-ending victories over Detroit and Baltimore mattered a little more than the 0-3 start or that 0-3 period beforehand, to see how the team rallied back? It meant something to you.

Brown: “Yes. We had a very unusual season. Obviously, we were off offensively. We lost a handful of games that were games we could’ve, should’ve won. They were very close. They were one-play games. And if we had managed to win our share of those, we would’ve been out of that middle group of teams. In my mind, there’s a middle group that runs from say 6-10 to 9-7. That’s over a dozen teams. With all of them, they have a fan base that is dissatisfied. Ours is no exception. And yet they are all close to having been in the next level. And I think that that’s where we were. We had a disappointing season because we didn’t win our share of those close games that we could’ve, should’ve won. I think it goes beyond that, though. I think we tailed off in some areas that brought us down. I think those issues are correctable. I don’t think we’re far off. I think we can make the changes that we need to make and quickly rebound to the level where we were a couple years ago.”

Enquirer: You talk to Marvin a lot, but he said in order to come back he had to remain aligned with you. It made me think that at some point, you were no longer aligned.

Brown: “Well, there are issues. They are countless. We discuss them all. More often than not, way more often than not, we agree. There are occasions when we’ll see it differently. Quite often I permit him to go forward when I don’t necessarily see it the same way. Occasionally, I will say no, it’s going to be this way. It’s a mix of all that. That’s a day to day part of the business. One of the good things is we understand each other. While we aren’t always eye-to-eye, when we sit down I’d like to think when he leaves the room we have it set to go forward in a way that’s agreeable to both of us. I think that’ the general outcome. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think it’s healthy.”

Enquirer: I would imagine then, that since he is back, there was no big divide or misalignment that had to be corrected?

Brown: “I think we know what the common problems are. And guess what – you know what they are too. We have to do better in certain areas. We’re going to try to. They are different ways to attack each and every one of those problem areas that we have. We have talked about that repeatedly. Not just in the last couple weeks but over the course of the season. Again, I’m repeating, but that’s the way it works in real life. Yes, it was a hard year. Everybody felt it down here. We fell short of where we wanted to go. But in my mind, while that was a major disappointment, this was a very close run thing. And we were not as far as off as some surmise. A break here or there, a play here or there, and we would’ve had an outcome that would have been received in a wholly different light.”

Enquirer: Was there a different sense of urgency or timeline for you in finding out if Marvin was still the guy, in the light of other job openings or perhaps having to request permission to talk to other coaches? Or did you just want to focus on your conversation with him?

Brown: “I focused on our situation. And our situation began with resolving Marvin’s situation. He would have to speak about what was in his mind. But I made the determination that we were best served by going forward with him and we had the conversation. He agreed to that. And we put it in motion. There was a lot to attend to and each and every decision on the assistant coaches was something that involved a lot of discussion, a lot of options, a lot of thought, and we put it together as it is together now, except for maybe a piece here or there. But I think it’s back together in good shape. We brought in good, new people. They will add to the discussion down here about what we do and why we do it. I think we needed a little bit of freshening up. This should do that. At least that’s how I feel about it.”

Enquirer: Marvin Lewis said you needed to feel like he was still driven to do what he set out to do in 2003…

Brown: “A lot of this talk, to me, is sort of a dance. The public expects certain dance steps and if you do it a little differently they’re free to condemn that or criticize it. You’re supposed to say, it’s good form, we’re going to win the Super Bowl. Well, that’s sort of a silly statement. Everybody wants to win the Super Bowl. Obviously. That’s what we all want to do. We’re going to make our best effort to do that. But it starts with simply winning each and every game, one by one by one. It’s a simple concept. It’s a difficult concept. But it is not anything more than banter, to use some of the formulae that you hear mouthed by different people. Part of our job, I guess, is just to sit back and listen and then go about our business which is one step at a time.”

Enquirer: Why then did you feel he was still the guy to get that job done?

Brown: “I think he knows our situation well. He brings continuity. I don’t think he lost the football team. I think that was evidenced by the last couple games. The players like Marvin. They support him. I think that’s a good thing. The area where we have some making up to do is with our public. They are unsettled because they wanted to see more. And then it didn’t come through for them in the fashion they had expected or hoped; they began to make commentary and some of that was well, it’s Marvin, some of that was well, it’s Mike, some of that was whatever it was. I have to look beyond that. I have to just do what I think puts our team in the best position to win. Even if it is a short-term issue with our fans. I will tell you that it's all going to play out on the field here. And if we win, it will be great. If we don’t, you’ll be right back here asking why.”

Enquirer: When Marvin says his job is to win the Super Bowl…

Brown: “That’s every coach's job.”

Enquirer: And that is what you want, as you said…

Brown: “We all want (it). Every owner wants that. Every coach wants that. I think Marvin said that because there is a theme amongst all the other themes that somehow we really don’t aspire to a high enough goal. That’s baloney. We’re no different than any other team. We all have the same goal. When you have to say publicly things such as that, you’re just playing a game of sorts. I guess you have to do it. So, Marvin felt the pressure and he said what he thought was going to quiet the onslaught in the moment. And that’s all right. But the basic thing is to keep in mind is yes, we want to do that. Everybody wants to do that. The guy that asked that question wants us to do that. We want to do it. And every team in the National Football League and their fans want to do it. It’s a given. To have to dwell on it is, to me, unnecessary. But maybe you do.”

Enquirer: But it’s Bill Belichick and Marvin in terms of being the longest tenured coach with one team, and when you haven’t reached that – let alone winning one – but even reaching the next step in the playoffs, in your mind, is 15 years enough of an opportunity to do that? Or do you only look at what’s ahead, and what he can do for you in 2018 and 2019?

Brown: “I look forward as to who gives us the best chance next year. That’s how I would address that question. Do I wish we had won the Super Bowl in each of the last 15 years? I do. Maybe it would’ve helped to have had Tom Brady. We didn’t. I will credit Belichick with great success. In my mind, he is the top coach of his time in pro football, and that’s all anybody can be. He has rung the gong if you will. Good for him. And I admire him immensely. But he doesn’t coach here. He’s up in New England. And all 31 of the rest of us are perhaps trying to catch him and in time we will. Things will change. They always do. They’re a well-coached team, with a great quarterback. I respect that. Highly.”

Enquirer: What do you see as being needed to be done differently, or what do the Bengals need to do to change in 2018 to get to the Super Bowl?

Brown: “We were way off offensively last year. It starts with pass protection. We’ve got to get that up to standard. We have to run the ball more effectively than we did over the course of the year. At the end of the year, we were (more effective). So perhaps we’re closer to putting together one of those pieces that has to be corrected. The pass protection issue is still out there and we will work to try to make that what it needs to be. I honestly feel that on offense, overall, we have enough people to be good. We do intend to shore it up. That is one of our principal goals.

“On defense, some of the problems over there were caused by the lack of the offense’s ability to stay on the field, move the ball, get ahead and not make the chore of the defense harder. Do I feel we have people there? I think we do. I think we can add a couple pieces there as well and that will help. And we have to stay healthy in certain spots. By the end of the year, we were down top playing with our (practice) squad linebackers. That was something I had never seen before. To their credit, they went out and did pretty darn well. But we do need (Vontaze) Burfict to be on the field. We need Burfict to be healthy. We need to get our other ‘backers back and playing.

“As a group, I think they’re talented enough to win a lot for us.”

Enquirer: Marvin said one of the complications to a return was the coaching staff. Did you have to take stock of the entire staff – it’s not just a head coach issues, it’s everybody that needs to be re-evaluated?

Brown: “That’s how it presented itself. We had a clean slate. The order of work was head coach first. And then the process of settling on that, the assistant coaches were fending for themselves. Once Marvin was taken care of, we turned to the assistant coaching area. Some of our guys chose to leave. Some of them we chose to ask to leave. It was a big changeover. I think it’s around seven guys were moved in some fashion, maybe more. That’s unprecedented. We’ve had more changeover in the assistant coaching level than I can remember short of changing the head coach. That would bring a lot of fresh ideas in here. We’re in need of some fresh ideas. I look forward to how it will be put together a little differently than before. But we also retain a lot of continuity, and I think that’s important too. It’ll be a mix. It will be interesting to see if it plays out right. I think it will.”

Enquirer: Was part of all of this fixing the offense, beginning with identifying Bill Lazor as the offensive coordinator and of course moving on from Paul Alexander?

Brown: “This was not a one-time conversation. These matters were discussed off and on over the course of the season. We had lots of conversations. And at the end of the season, I think we were pretty much in agreement on where we stood. The thing that crept into the mix was the opportunity for some of the assistant coaches to fend for themselves and that changed our staff. We also made some changes of our own. I’m repeating here, but it was a mix of this. As I said when you came through the door, it was a very hectic time. We had a lot of balls in the air for a couple weeks.”

Enquirer: The one specific change Marvin mentioned was being better at finding players from other teams to augment...

Brown: “That’s talked about a lot. It’s the offseason focus for many. It’s driven by the cap. We have that system that we have to adhere to, as does every other team in the league. Some of the teams that were especially successful last year in free agency, I think of Jacksonville, I think of the Rams, were teams that had an inordinate amount of cap room. They had been notably unsuccessful for years previous to this last season. And they went out, and to their credit, they made costly acquisitions, but helpful acquisitions. They were in a position to do it. Most teams aren’t. And we fall into the most teams aren’t category. We try to spend our cap money in ways that we think make sense. Our goal is to retain our own good players if we can. That’s the first order of business. And we can’t always do that with the cap room that we have. We do a lot of it. that is quickly overlooked whenever we do it. Oh, go do this, go do that. Well, the chips to do that have been spent. They’re gone. We look to do what we can within our cap room. We do every year, and we will this year. We will have to allocate the cap room that we have to a combination of our own players, and that will be first and foremost, and then it will be what else we can do to add the team.”

Enquirer: Is some of that a scouting, or staffing issue – having a pro personnel side – it’s not about money or activity, but it’s about finding better players from other teams?

Brown: “There are players that would fit us. Tell me how to fit them. It’s trying to put a size 12 foot in a size five shoe. It doesn’t work. We are going to examine all the options that we have. We will consider them. I’d like to think that we could figure some things out. But I circle back and tell you that our principal concern will be to try to keep the good players we have, and then go to that if we have the option still available.”

Enquirer: You mentioned the short term work to do with the public. Were you concerned with the lack of attendance at the end of the year?

Brown: “Clearly, our attendance was off. The best single thing we can do to re-establish our attendance is to win on the field. All the other things are peripheral to that. We won’t be able to improve any of that until we get out there and have our chance to do so. But that is the key. I suppose there are other things. We have people that work on the other things and we try to do them right. You mentioned the 50th-anniversary celebration. We brought old-timers back on a weekly basis and I thought that went extremely well. Yet doing that is not going to fill the seats. They’re going to come when we win. In some ways, ours is a hard market. It is the fact that our people are judgmental about us. They are often easy to condemn when it doesn’t go to their standards. But we’re coming off a run of playoff years and they began to see that as the bare minimum. Well, maybe for them it is. For most people in this league, it’s a pretty solid achievement. I think only a couple of other teams have managed that during that same time period. But we didn’t go forward from that. We didn’t have success in the playoffs. And that was our undoing.

"Now, here we are, having fallen off some. And we have to collect ourselves and come back to that level or better. That’s the goal.”

Enquirer: So you’ve seen Marvin take this team to the playoffs, but not beyond. So do you ever feel you needed to change the head coach to get us to the next level – or was it that you knew Marvin can manage to get us there but other things need to change?

Brown: “I think he can manage. I think he has managed it in the past and I think we’ve been very close. We haven’t quite gotten where we needed to get. He knows that. I know that. I do think, repeating again, that our best chance to get there is with him having another run at it. He brings a lot to the table. You can always say the next one will be better, an improvement, but you’re talking about the unknown essentially. We do know Marvin. We know him with his strengths, we know him with his weaknesses. And we all have a few of those. He has his. I think they’re enough to get us there. And I decided to give him the opportunity.”