All of the talk about the Ravens and Marvin Lewis was sparked by a sports columnist in Baltimore throwing out possible options for the Ravens next head coach. As stated in the article, the Ravens front office has not explored the possibility of grabbing Marvin. If they ever do explore the possibility, the idea will be dropped quickly. Mike Brown is a cheap and miserly owner that only deals with issues in terms of nickels and dimes, not football. Searching for and hiring a new head coach is a very expensive and time consuming undertaking. Look at all of the time and energy being expended by the other current coachless teams. Also, once a new coach is hired, that coach will want to bring in his own staff and assemble his own team structure; Again more money, more negotiations, more time, more change.
Why would Mike Brown put himself through all of that work and money when he already has what he truly wants, a sold out stadium? The Ravens could offer a fair deal for Marvin in terms of football sense, but Mike Brown does not think in terms of football sense. During his tenure as team owner, Mike Brown has essentially made only one coaching hire, Marvin Lewis. Four months after taking over the Bengals in 1991, Mike Brown fired Sam Wyche over a money dispute. He then hired Dave Shula who was already on the Bengals coaching staff. After 4.5 seasons, Shula was fired and Bruce Coslet was hired as interim coach, later to become official head coach. After Coslet quit 3 games into the 2000 season, Dick LeBeau was hired as the interim coach, later to become the official head coach. Each time, the coaching staff was kept pretty much intact as the head coach was hired from within. Over 17 years of losing and embarrassment, Mike Brown has only made full scale changes once. What are the chances of him making full scale coaching changes now with the team at .500 and a sold out stadium? I know for sure that draft picks are not going to be enough. The only way Marvin Lewis will be the head coach of the Ravens is if he forces Mike Brown's hand and gets himself fired. Other than that, Marvin Lewis will be the coach of the Cincinnati Bengals until Mike Brown has a financial need for change.


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The Bengals are searching for a defensive coordinator. That alone is good news. It means that the front office realized that the last 5 games of the season don’t change the fact that Chuck Bresnahan did a lousy job.

This situation makes me think of what was being said about the hiring of Bresnahan when it happened. Here’s a story about the team’s reaction at the time, and what Bresnahan had to say about it during his first few days on the job. All in all, these two articles make it seem like Bresnahan was never a no-doubter.

Everyone assumes that once a team hires a coach with a reputation as being great on one side of the ball, like Marvin Lewis and Tony Dungy on defense, Brian Billick and Jon Gruden on offense, that their team will immediately take on those traits. But that rarely seems to be the case, as the Ravens of Billick (now fired) and the Bengals are the most glaring examples.

One thing that this situation reminds me of is Barry Sonnenfeld. Forgive me for going pretty far off the gridiron here, but Barry Sonnenfeld is a great movie director who used to be a great cinematographer/director of photography (DP). As a director, he’s done Men In Black, Get Shorty and The Addams Family. As a DP, he did Big, When Harry Met Sally… and a lot of Coen brothers movies like Raising Arizona and Miller’s Crossing.

This quote is from an interview he did with UGO.com.

UGO: How do you work with cinematographers now?

BARRY: Well when I became a director, the first movie I directed was The Addams Family. I looked at all the cinematographers that had tried to be directors. Gordon Willis did Windows, John Alonzo did FM; Bill Fraker did Legend of the Lone Ranger. These are all brilliant cinematographers and none of them made a successful transition. What I noticed about them in all those cases is they took their camera operator and made them the DP, which meant that they don't want to give up being a DP. I felt that if I was to be a successful director then I had to hire a DP that was so good and was so much better than me that I wouldn't dare tell them how to light. So I hired Owen Roizman. I still design the shots but I didn't want to do anything with the lighting. To this day I always hire really good cameramen for that reason.

To me, Marvin needs to find a defensive coordinator that’s great, and let that person do his job. Don’t try to find someone who’s going to implement what Marvin thinks we should be doing. Find someone who’s going to do his own thing, and do it great.

Apparently, the Ravens won’t let the Bengals interview Rex Ryan, but he’s the kind of candidate I’d like to see. Someone who other teams want to hire as a head coach. Someone who people talk about how clever his schemes are. Someone who gets the most out of the players he has, and identifies the right players to fit the system.

Also, Tim Lewis of Carolina isn’t being allowed to interview with the Bengals.

So apparently the names we’re considering are Kevin Coyle, our current secondary coach, and Mike Zimmer, the defensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons. I hope the list is bigger than two.

And I hope they’re not afraid to hire someone with a name we don’t recognize, but who we’ll be afraid of losing to another team in a few years.


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So Mike Preston up in Baltimore, it seems, is trying to start a swell to push the Ravens into trying to pry Marvin Lewis away from the Bengals and have him become the new head coach for the Baltimore Ravens.

I personally think the story does not hold water and the guys need to keep churning out stories to keep getting paid. However, lets humor it for a minute.

Why would Marvin want to take the job in Baltimore.
- He would not get to draft his own players. Newsome likes that responsibility.
- He would be taking a step back with an old defense and a terrible offense.
- There is no Carson Palmer to draft in this years draft to build an offense around.
- If he thinks the media in Cincinnati is bad, I hope he remembers them from his days over there.

I personally don't believe that Marvin is on the hot seat. He is building a team and I for one am optimistic about what the future holds.


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