Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis is one of six coaches that coached under Brian Billick with the Baltimore Ravens. The others being former 49ers head coaches Mike Nolan and Mike Singletary, current Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio, Jets head coach Rex Ryan and Falcons head coach Mike Smith. No, it's not the Sid Gilman coaching tree that would eventually branch off into the historic Bill Walsh coaching tree with so many head coaches that it could double the population of Rhode Island. But respectable enough.
With the hire of Hue Jackson in Oakland on Tuesday, the Marvin Lewis coaching tree finally sprouted out of the ground. Joining Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier, Jackson becomes only the second former assistant coach to Lewis that earned a position as a head coach.
Jackson, once a former running backs coach for the NFL Europe's London Monarchs, was the Bengals wide receiver coach between 2004-2006, helping develop the team's trio of Chris Henry, T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Chad Johnson (what he was known as at the time). Jackson would leave for Atlanta in 2007 to be Bobby Petrino's offensive coordinator for a season; Mike Zimmer was the team's defensive coordinator.
Frazier was the Bengals defensive coordinator for two seasons, joining the newly hired Lewis in 2003 and acquiring the league's worst scoring defense. He improved the defense each season until it ranked as the league's 21st scoring defense and 19th overall during his final season in 2004. Chuck Bresnahan came in and absolutely wrecked the defense afterwards, never ranking higher than 27th. This was before Chuck had the intersect, apparently.